Dark Energy 5: Inheritance
by Melaradark
Summary: The last and final chapter of the Dark Energy Saga. It is 100 years from the time of Del Shepard's passing, and the truth of a very old enemy that once threatened the entirety of the galaxy is now coming to light. Who created the Reapers and why...and what happens when those creators realize that their creations have been defeated?
1. Chapter 1

A/N: Hello and welcome to DE5, the final (for now) chapter in the DE saga. Gonna run through some things real quick before I get started.

Firstly, even though this is called DE5, it is actually the sixth installment of my DE series. If you have not read the previous stories, I strongly suggest you do so before reading this. Secondly, I write these stories based on the idea that everyone reading them has played ME at least once. I do not go out of my way to explain tech and lore that is in the game, nor do I apologize for spoilers.

For those of you familiar with my writing style, I don't generally plan my storylines out ahead of time. This particular story has necessitated a little bit of foreplanning, mainly on specifics- the reason for the Reapers, what their purpose is, why they Reap, etc. Scene by scene things won't be really planned but the major milestones are pre-plotted. It's not my preferred method, but again…kind of necessary given the nature of this particular piece.

In this story I will explain where the Reapers came from, who built them and the Citadel and mass relay system, why they follow a Cycle of Extinction, and what it was that Del saw when she activated the Crucible and destroyed them. This is NOT Bioware canon. There are no leviathans, no star child. This is my own take on how I would have done it if I had been a writer on the game with any sort of creative control over the end product. You may not like my version of events, and that's just fine. Recognize simply they are MY version of events, and I think they explain things quite neatly.

Events in DE5 will take place roughly 100+ years after Del Shepard's death, approximately 320ish years after the Reapers were defeated. Melara and Irie, both young matrons, will be the focus of this story, but there will be cameos and even major characters in it that will be familiar, whether Bioware's or my own OCs. There will also be new characters as well. EDI, Chiktikka, Joker (after a fashion), Liara, Grunt, the rachni, and many others will make appearances, either large or small. Also, the original species I introduced in my AU, the rakir, will be appearing (Sokka and Sihra included), and possibly other new species of my making. However, don't look at my AU and think you know where I'm going with things…I may surprise you.

That said, the scene in the AU where Del unwittingly saves Melara's life WILL BE in this story, told from Mel's point of view. So…there's that.

Lastly, while the first DEs were updated quite often, due to a change in my workload I cannot update nearly as quickly. That said, I will strive to put up at least two chapters per week, Wednesday and Saturday being the most common days they will appear.

All right, here we go. Lock down your hard-suits and pick up your rifles. It's DE time!

* * *

**Dark Energy: INHERITANCE**

* * *

It was night, and the stars were lost in an endless blanket of steam and fog. The moon was alive with volcanic activity, and roiling magma and hot springs lurked just below the unstable crust, often breaking the surface to bubble in pools of sulphur and superheated rock. It was a dangerous landscape, a fact the small group of seven kept well in mind.

Omni-lights crawled through the gloom, rarely lighting up any more than a patch of solid ground a few feet ahead, as the seven quickly but carefully picked their way along.

"Ma'am," a young private said, addressing the armored figure bearing the slashes of an N7 captain. "Signal is getting stronger. It's about nine meters ahead- we should be on it any moment."

"Weapons up and move cautiously," she replied. "Laws, I want a continuous scan for any hint of a trap. These guys are not above playing nasty."

Rifles were lifted and the seven continued onward. It wasn't until they were only four meters away than the curving edge of the crashed slaver vessel formed out of the gloom. A turian figure peered critically at her scans, before she spoke.

"Looks like she got through the crash in more or less one piece. The hull has been compromised near the aft-point airlock, and I'm showing severe plate buckling at 17 meters. No significant eezo radiation or indication that their core shielding was compromised."

"Life signs?"

"No. They either all died in the crash or they've got maskers."

"We'll go in near the aft-point airlock. Keep your weapons up. Full scans and a sweep once we're inside- don't shoot unless you have to. We want prisoners, not corpses."

The ground grew soggy as they reached the breach in the downed ship. Knowing what water was on this moon would be incredibly corrosive thanks to the high sulphuric acid content in the sediment, they did their best to keep to the driest ground possible.

The turian lead the way into the breach, quickly scanning and then stepping aside as the others entered. They were in a cargo hold, one that looked to have been swept in some places by fire. Great swaths of the metal walls were scorched and blackened, and one corpse- little more than ash and bone, was slumped near a half-open door.

The turian gestured silently, indicating the gaping door and the hall beyond, before she headed that way, taking two of the others with her to sweep the rest of the ship. The N7 and her three remaining compatriots remained in the hold. One of them moved immediately toward the corpse on the ground and crouched to scan it.

"Nevil, do the full round of this room," the N7 said, then moved after the first.

"Results?"

"Human," came the reply. "Not that I think it needs to be said, but cause of death is incineration, likely from the power conduit explosion just here. I…_interesting_…"

"What is it?"

The younger asari peered closer, then reached under the remains and hooked out a set of dog tags. The metal plates were blackened but otherwise undamaged. She scrubbed a thumb over them. "Old fashioned dog tags. Holder Moore."

"You believe that?" the human private lingering nearby asked, looking at the captain. Dark eyes turned up to look back skeptically.

"What do _you_ think?"

"Yeah, it's too convenient, and we wouldn't get that lucky."

"Can you match DNA?" the captain asked the younger asari, who had carefully removed the tag and chain.

"I will take a sample. If I can get some that is not too badly damaged, I can do a match once we are back on board."

"Ma'am, I have something," Nevil said suddenly, and the pair turned toward him, the captain straightening and then striding over, leaving the doctor crouched beside the corpse as she took her sample. Nevil had turned off his omni-beam and gestured at the wall.

"There's compartments here. Very cleverly hidden but not cleverly enough."

"This is what we're looking for," she said. "Can you get them open? Are you reading any life signs within?"

"No, there are maskers set into these walls, specifically designed to hide all life signs. I can get them open but it's going to take me a moment or two."

"Do it." She touched her com. "Vina, do we have the ship clear?"

_{Just reached the helm, Mel. We've counted four dead, all human. Looks like a couple may have survived the crash and bolted.}_

"Head back here but keep on full scans. We found some hidden compartments, and there are probably more throughout the ship. Those survivors may be hiding in them, so stay frosty."

"Hopefully they _did_ take off," Laws said moodily. "Imagining them running blind into a lava pool is a very pleasant thought."

"Indeed, but unless that body actually _is_ Moore we need one or two of them alive to weed him and the rest of the ring out."

"Here we go, Captain," Nevil said from the side. "The ship's cold, so there's not much power-but I think there's enough to open these."

"Do it. Lily, we need you over here."

As the younger asari secured her sample and headed over to them, the quarian tweaked another connection from a panel he'd opened in the wall, and there was a dim hum. The sound grew, but sluggishly. Laboriously, part of the wall and floor shifted and began to slide open. Two solid metal boxes, both the size of coffins, lifted out of the secret compartment. As they halted, Nevil immediately began working on getting them open, just as the turian and her group returned.

"We did thorough scans," Vina said without preamble, heading over to the captain. "We managed to pull a great deal of intel off their secondary computer systems but we found no other secret compartments, and the fore hatch is blown. Whoever survived definitely took off on foot."

"If they're still on this moon they're not getting off it now, not with _Normandy_ in orbit. Notify Joker to snag anything that leaves this rock that isn't us."

"Already done," Vina replied, the nodded toward the caskets. "We found her?"

"Possibly," Melara looked back toward the caskets, her dark eyes brooding. "They could be empty for all we can tell with our scans. Laws, ping the shuttle to come around to our location, as close as it can safely land. If she _is_ in there and alive, we'll need to get her to the infirmary as quickly as possible."

As the private stepped off a bit, Nevil made a triumphant sound. "I got it, Captain! Non-mechanical, heavy magnet locks…I'm going to need some help lifting this."

"Step back," she said. As he did, she moved forward, hands lighting up with a bright blue glow.

The lid shimmered in the wake of the dark energy wielded by the asari matron, then began to rise. She shifted it off to the side, letting it drop with a clang the moment it was clear. Quickly, Lily rushed over, her scanner already out.

"_Goddess..."_ she said breathlessly as she got a look within. Melara peered into the casket as well and grimaced a little.

What lay inside made her heart and gut clench, a flare of anger tightening her chest. The prisoner had been reduced to little more than fur and bone, very clearly starved and tortured for quite some time. Wrists and ankles were so tightly bound the cords had worn through flesh and were nearly buried. Over her face there was a muzzle, similarly tight, sunk so deep the skin was starting to grow over it.

"She alive?"

"Yes…if you can call _this_ life," the young doctor said, her voice softly horrified. "We must get her to the infirmary as quickly as possible."

"Is it her?"

"I think…yes, I am showing a sample match."

"_Shit_. Vina, get her out of there, _carefully_, and head for the shuttle. Lily, _keep her alive_. That is your top priority, no matter what you have to do. Laws, stand by. I'm going to open this second box and we have no idea who or what may be in it."

The lid shifted under her biotic energy the same as the first. As it was cast aside, Nevil and Laws peered within, the quarian male groaning. "Keelah…"

The occupant of this box was quite clearly dead, half-lidded and dull eyes staring blankly out of an emaciated face. Like the first, she had been muzzled and bound, but she appeared to have been more significantly tortured, part of her body literally peeled of skin among other wounds. Her throat had been cut deeply enough to nearly sever her head…and it had been done recently enough that the thick blood painting the inside of the casket all around her was still tacky in appearance. When she saw her, Mel's shoulders slumped a little.

_Too late to save this poor soul_, she thought. It was obvious the slavers had tortured her in an attempt to make her obedient and complicit, and when that failed, they'd cut her throat- an odd act of mercy for the bastards, and very out of keeping with Moore himself. It was far more like him to just lock her in and let her die. _If he's really looking for complicit slaves, he picked the wrong species. They-_

Despite the obvious, Laws had started a scan on the body, trying to gather as much information as she could. She was halfway through when she suddenly, visibly jolted and gasped. "Captain! I have life signs!"

"What? That's impossible, her damn throat is slit-"

"It's not her, it's…_fuck me_…"

The private's omni-tool switched off as she reached for the body, groping at its belly a moment. Finding what she was looking for, she slid her hands inside a thick fold of skin and dry fur. When her hands pulled out of the pouch again, she was holding something that- for a moment- Melara's brain refused to process.

It looked like a bundle of sticks and ragged cloth, a patched together child's toy and barely seven inches in length. Then, it moved, and realization rocked her.

"Get it to Lily. _Now,_" she heard herself say. Laws pulled it close and ran toward the breach, Melara and Nevil following at a trot.

The quarian seemed even more rocked than the asari. "Was that a…a _baby_?"

"They're marsupial, they carry their young in pouches," Melara told him. "Moore either didn't know or didn't care. Being the cold fuck he is the latter wouldn't surprise me."

They reached the shuttle, climbing on board. Mel slapped the wall between them and the helm. "Get us back home, _now._"

The adult prisoner had been laid down on one of the benches, Vina crouched beside her. Lily, who had been tending to her, had turned her attentions the moment Laws had rushed aboard, and was now scanning the tiny thing in her hands.

"Male, only three month or so after birth. Captain, he is _far_ too young to be out of his pouch, and my guess is he has been receiving no appreciable nutrition from his mother in days. He is very close to death. Even with our facilities I do not know if I will be able to save him."

"What about her?" Mel asked, gesturing at the limp woman with Vina.

"I can do little more for her until we are back on the _Normandy_, but she is not in much better shape. We could lose them both very quickly, no matter what we do."

Stepping back from Laws Lily pulled off her helmet and began to quickly strip out of her breast-plate.

"What are you doing?" Vina asked, confused.

"He is hypothermic. He needs warmth," she said. Gently taking the little bundle from Laws she tucked it under her shirt, cradling the dying infant against her stomach, skin on skin, with one arm underneath to support it.

A sound drew Mel's attention. Stepping past, she laid a hand gently on Lily's shoulder a moment, before going and crouching at Vina's side.

"I think she's waking up," her turian XO said. "I'd be a bit nervous if she wasn't in such shit shape."

"Can we get these bindings off of her?"

"Not until we are in the infirmary," Lily said, looking at them. "They are sunk deeply and there could be significant bleeding if we remove them now."

The dying woman shifted, eyes cracking. Her gaze was lifeless and dull, but as it focused it suddenly seemed to sharpen. Jolting weakly, she let out a grunt and tried to lift her hands. Melara caught hold of them well above the bindings, easily and gently restraining her.

"_Fikkoga, fikkoga_…" Mel said. "No ki nakiga gras vikoshta!"

The woman blinked at her, then slumped a little, far too weak to resist. Despite her muzzle, she tried to bare her teeth a little.

"_Ni…mokina?_" she whispered, voice little more than the breath from a grave.

"Mer tosik," Melara replied softly. "I'm a friend. Mer tosik. Nakiga…you're going to be all right, Prilekk. You're going to be all right."

* * *

Two of Lily's assistants were waiting for them the moment the shuttle docked. Lily carefully passed the infant to one, who turned and ran toward the infirmary while Lily helped to move the dying Prilekk onto a hover stretcher.

As her niece rushed off with her patients, Melara Shepard stepped off the shuttle along with Laws and Vina, removing her helmet as she looked over at her XO. "Get us on course for the Nakira observation base, send a priority one to let them know we're coming and what the situation is. Laws, get our scan data and what we were able to pull off their secondary computer to Joker, I want it dissected."

As the two headed off, Nevil fell into step next to Melara, his luminescent eyes worried. "We're not going to stay and scan the moon for the survivors?"

"We can't. Lily is smart but she has only a rudimentary working knowledge of rakir physiology. The Prilekk and that baby need to get to the research base as quickly as possible to get full and proper treatment. They have to be our priority."

"This is bad news, isn't it? Even if the Council approves the petition to uplift the rakir, the Ubuuta is going to think _we're_ responsible for the Prilekk's condition. She's not going to trust us-"

"If the Prilekk dies we will have lost some significant leverage with the Ubuuta, _if_ the Council even allows us to talk with her. Hopefully our _other_ leverage will have to be enough to earn her cooperation. If the Prilekk lives then with luck, she'll see us as rescuers and allies. That'll swing some weight with her niece. Sokka is intensely loyal to her aunt, almost to the point of fanaticism. The Prilekk is our strongest hope to securing a treaty- so long as the Council sees our evidence and allows us to make first contact."

Nevil shook his head, placing his hand over his eyes a moment, before scrubbing at his thin gold beard with frustration. "Such a mess, all of it. I never could stomach or even wrap my head around politics. Such over complication of what should be such simple matters. I think I'll stick with the engine- math and mechanics are at least consistent."

As he headed back down to his post in engineering, Melara took the lift up to the _Normandy_'s crew deck, stepping out and heading to the infirmary.

Within was a bustle of activity. Lily was beside the biobed where the Prilekk lay, once again unconscious. She was doing a full biological scan, the rakir female's internal systems appearing in holographic form hovering a foot or two above her actual physical form. For a moment, Melara paused and watched, not wanting to get in the way or be a distraction.

She had been hesitant to take her only niece down to the moon. Dr. Delilah T'Soni- Lily to her friends and family- had been her chief medical officer for nearly ten years now. Though she had some working knowledge of combat and fire-arms, Lily was not a soldier. Like her mother and grandmother, her abilities and inclinations ran toward the academic, and she was far more at home in a lab than she'd ever be in a firefight. Other than her bright green eyes, she strongly physically resembled Irie as well- to the point that some often thought they were sisters and not mother and daughter.

The day that Lily had come on board to take her post, Melara had promised Irie that she would always look after her child, keep her safe. Putting Lily into any kind of situation that may prove more dangerous than the _already_ dangerous life of living aboard a Spectre's ship was never Mel's preferred choice. Still, she knew if they actually found the Prilekk she would need immediate medical attention, and Lily was the only one of the ship's small medical compliment that had any education in rakir physiology at all, even _if_ that education lacked hands-on experience.

_She's getting that now_, she thought as she watched her niece work, directing her staff in injections and sterilization procedures, watching carefully as the brain patterns in the holograph stabilized slightly.

As she stepped back around her console and toward the patient, Lily spotted her aunt standing quietly near the door. Waving her forward with a nod she began gingerly looking at the bindings cutting into the woman's ankles and wrists.

"She is as stable as I dare to make her," Lily said as Mel drew near. "Her body systems are incredibly weak. I can keep her unconscious and we are starting some nutritive therapy to maintain her body organs but I am not confident enough for more. Too much too quickly and her body will be driven into shock. All three of her hearts are in a very delicate state, and such a shock could stop them immediately."

"Will she live?"

"I cannot say," Lily said softly. "Were she salarian or krogan or even human- _another_ species I was more confident in treating- I'd still only give her chances at about nine percent. It is only a miracle she lives now. How her body is still functioning is beyond my understanding."

Grimacing at the wrist bindings she shook her head, looking at her assistant. "These and the ones on her ankles are far too deep. They will need to be surgically removed, and for that she needs to be a lot more stable. We will have to leave them as they are for now, but I want you to resterilize the area every few minutes. We can at least make sure no further infection gets in."

She turned her attention to the muzzle on the Prilekk's face. "Thanks to her bone structure this is not quite as deep. I think we can risk removal."

"How is the infant?" Melara asked, turning her head. She could not immediately see the baby, but she could see the back of the medic caring for it.

"In just as bad a condition. I do not expect he will survive. We do not have natal facilities, and the poor thing is so tiny and so withered that its veins are as fine as hairs. Toby is trying a high protein synthetic supplement and some electrolyte solution under its tongue but it is a shot in the dark at best."

She and her assistant carefully cut the muzzle at several key points, Lily looking it over again before she nodded. Gingerly, they began to peel the leather straps from the rakir's face. Inch by inch it came free, the sound like old tape being torn off of paper. Blood and puss began to ooze as bits were removed and discarded, and Mel grimaced more than once in unconscious sympathy.

She hated slavers as a rule, and this was a very good example why. They thought nothing of treating their captives like animals, breaking any soul with numerous physical and psychological tortures they could to make them pliant, subservient. They had no problem selling children and even infants, bolstering perverted black market sex trades. They also had no problem carving up their captives like slabs of meat, selling organs or- in the case of any unfortunate salarian or drell that may be taken- slicing them up and turning their glands into Grease- a highly addictive and extremely illegal narcotic drug sold to only the most twisted of cretins.

This was beyond what they would normally encounter when dealing with slavers, however. These slavers- _Moore's_ slavers- had not only landed illegally on a Council sanctioned world, they had done so on a world that contained a young, bronze-age level civilization. The rakir were already facing extinction as a people thanks to a medical problem they called the Affliction, which caused an increasing number of their males to halt their growth at the onset of puberty, rendering them infertile. These 'stunted' males now outnumbered fertile males nine to one. Unless the Council allowed the entire species to be uplifted so that a cure could be found and disseminated, the rakir would go extinct within two generations- and now, Moore's slavers were somehow sneaking in and stealing them off their home world.

Worse, they had not just taken random rakir they had found isolated. The woman lying here getting a muzzle slowly peeled out of her face was none other than the Ubuut's Prilekk Utchibahna Sihra…the equivalent of a High Champion to an Emperor. She had been the only thing keeping the elderly and infirm Ubuut from being destroyed by younger rivals, when she'd suddenly disappeared on a Hunt. When she hadn't returned, the rivals and their Houses had performed a coup that had resulted in the death of the great Ubuut…and the slaughter of many of their _own_ remaining fertile males. Sihra's loyals- a group of highly trained warriors called the One Hundred- managed to put down the revolution but at great cost. Now, Sihra's own niece Utchibahna Sokka had taken the throne and named herself the Ubuuta. She was a competent leader and was quickly reuniting the Houses of the Kodra into cooperation again, but far too many fertile males had been lost in the fighting- males they could never replace. Not without immediate medical help.

Moore's actions had not only tortured this poor woman, her companion, and that infant- they had led to a massacre of epic proportions and hastened the extinction of an entire sentient species.

_And for what? What amount of wealth could possibly be worth this?_

Melara had had dealings with Moore before. The man was a beast as far as she was concerned, a soulless, cold bastard who would shoot his own grandmother if he thought he could make a credit from it. She would have happily put a bullet in his brain before, but now she was going to make it her personal duty to track him down and end him.

_If he's not _already _dead. Lily hasn't run her test yet…that body back on the moon could really have been him. If there is any justice in this galaxy, let it have been him._

The final pieces of the muzzle came free. Lily carefully sterilized the raw skin, using a little bit of medi-gel to soothe the irritated and swollen flesh, before she gently pried Sihra's jaws open and looked in her mouth to assess any further damage. She grimaced, a look of anger crossing her face.

"What is it?" Mel asked.

"We are dealing with _utter barbarians_," the normally gentle doctor said furiously. "She has traces of vegetable matter in her teeth."

"So they _were_ feeding her?" the assistant asked, confused.

"Yes, but she would have been better off if they had not. Rakir are carnivores in the purest sense. They need meat to survive. Their bodies literally cannot processes vegetable matter, not unless it has been heavily predigested first, broken down by stomach acid. Even forcing her to eat a small amount of this would have put her entire digestive system into gastric distress- she would have suffered excruciating pain from it."

"_Predigested_?" Melara asked, confused.

"Yes," Lily said, and looked at her. "They usually eat herbivorous animals, which feed on plant matter. The only plant matter a rakir ever consumes comes directly from the stomachs of these prey animals after the acids have broken down the vegetation's enzymes. Even then, it's eaten only rarely and in very small portions. They call it 'bekata'."

The assistant looked disgusted but Mel just shook her head. "I've heard of more unpalatable dishes. You should see what vorcha eat sometime."

Suddenly Joker's voice broke through over the comm. "Captain, we have an incoming communication from Navis for you over QEC."

"Thank you Joker, I'll take it in my room."

Lily looked up at her, wide eyed. "I am sorry, Mel…I completely forgot what day it is."

"So had I. We'll be at the Nakira research base in just under four hours, Lil. Keep her stable, and keep me updated."

"I will. Go. Talk to Dae. I…we can have a drink tonight? Call Grandmother?"

Melara nodded, lightly touching her niece's arm again before she turned and left the infirmary.


	2. Chapter 2

The _Normandy_ SR-4, like its three predecessors, was considered one of the most advanced frigates ever constructed. It was larger than its forebears, but capable of FTL speeds nearly twice that of the original _Normandy_, and with a weapons compliment that would bring most of her contemporary battle cruisers to shame.

Though the captain's quarters were still traditionally called the Nest, unlike the SR-2 and the SR-3, they were not the only quarters now on the highest deck. Her XO, Vina Karnataki, had rooms across a small lobby to the fore of the ship from the Nest, the pair adjoined to a small set of guest quarters for esteemed passengers, and a gym. What had once been the XO quarters on the crew deck were now taken up with the more advanced stealth systems.

By the time of the SR-3, nearly every military vessel in the Alliance- and out of it- had adopted the SR-2s cutting edge stealth systems- systems now considered common and archaic. Full cloaks, once considered too rough and expensive to be feasible for use on ships, were now installed on the SR-4. With a single thought, Joker could literally turn the new _Normandy_ completely invisible to the naked eye and to most scans.

As she rode the lift up to the Nest, Melara found herself thinking about the first time she'd set foot on a ship named _Normandy_. She'd only been ten years old, and everything had looked so huge to her. Even at that age, stepping onto her decks, feeling the pulse of the engines vibrating beneath her feet, remembering all the stories her parents and their friends had told her- it was like stepping into magic to the young asari. She'd had no doubt at all from that moment as to what she wanted to do with her life.

_You have too much of your father in you_, her mother had said nearly every day as the young Melara grew. Most of the time it was said as a compliment, an affection and a recognition of Mel's drive to be a soldier. Sometimes, when she was being an especially stubborn or willful daughter, it was said with exasperation.

Mel always took it as an honor. Her father had always been her unquestionable hero. If she lived to do even a _tenth_ of what Del Shepard had done…

The lift doors parted, and she crossed the small lobby to the door of the Nest, stepping inside. Passing her fingertips over her omni-tool, she accessed the hard-light projectors and activated the call from Navis. As she stepped down into the main living area, a form materialized in its center.

"Dae, I'm sorry for the delay," Mel said as her bondmate fully appeared. Navis stepped forward, catching her hand.

"Only _you_ would apologize for finally locating the missing Prilekk and retrieving her," she said. "She lives?"

"For the moment, but if we don't get her back to the facility in time…even then, I don't hold out much hope. She's…what they _did_ to her…no creature- sentient or otherwise-should have to endure that."

"Matron Neska and the others are prepared for her arrival. If anyone can help her-"

Melara blinked. "Are you at the research base?"

"Yes. I just arrived not twenty minutes ago- about the same time the report came in. I am happy to say we were able to discover the slavers' landing site on Nakira, though we have not yet discovered truly _how_ they got through the security net. There is some surveillance to examine but…those smarter than I shall have to interpret what can be seen. To be honest, I cannot really understand it."

Melara frowned. Daenys was hardly a stupid asari, not by any stretch of the imagination. That she felt what she had seen on surveillance was beyond her understanding, then it was of great concern.

Dae searched Melara's face a moment, then lifted a hand and gently rested it on her cheek. "They said you found an infant as well?"

"Yes. Lily holds out even less hope that the child will live. His mother was just as starved as the Prilekk, and horribly tortured. If I ever get my hands on Moore…"

"His?" Dae asked sadly. Mel nodded.

"Yet another male rakir lost to senselessness," Melara growled, before she turned away from Dae and went to her drink service. Much as she wanted to pour a whiskey, it was not time yet and she was still on duty. Instead, she simply got a glass of water.

Dae walked over, resting her arms around her love's shoulders, whispering in her ear. "He is not dead yet, Mel. Do not give up hope. Rakir- even infants- are stubborn and strong."

Daenys was not truly there, of course. What touched Melara was simply a hard-light projection of her. It allowed physical contact but it lacked the warmth and the smell and the vibrant feel of life that the real thing provided. On the research base, Dae was actually holding a similar hard-light projection of Mel- one just as cold.

Still, the contact did bring some measure of comfort. Mel could not fathom how her parents had endured their long days apart before the war, with only soft light holographic representations to interact with.

"That they are," she said neutrally, looking into her water. "Either way, that particular is out of my hands. Whether or not Neska is able to save the baby and the Prilekk, we have to make our case before the Council to get the rakir uplifted. The very fact that Moore is taking them off their home world for the slave trade, combined with the reality of the Affliction, should bolster our case."

"We would have a much stronger chance of a successful treaty if the Prilekk is still breathing. Much as I hate to use a living creature as a bargaining chip, our greatest hope with Sokka is to give her back her aunt."

"Yes, however it is looking less and less likely that we'll be able to do that. _Damn_ that ass Moore anyway!"

Dae was silent a long moment, merely holding her bondmate, before she said, "Are you going to call your mother tonight?"

"Of course," Mel said. "Lily wants to be there."

"I would like to be there as well, if possible. I know that you like to spend part of it alone, and I do not wish to intrude on that-"

Setting her glass down, Mel turned and wound her arms around the other asari's waist. "Hey. You are never an intrusion, Dae. Mama would love to see you too. You know she considers you another daughter."

"Your family has always been good to me," she said with a gentle smile. Though the urge was there, Dae did not lean forward and kiss her. Kissing something as cold and lifeless as a hard-light projection was pointless, especially when she would be seeing the real deal shortly. "I had better help them prepare for your arrival. I just…today is an important day, and I wanted to be sure you were all right."

"Hey, you know me," Mel said with a faint smile. "I'll be just fine. I'll see you soon, Dae- hopefully with a pair of living rakir to deliver."

"I will be waiting." She drew back a little, giving Mel's hand one more squeeze before the call disconnected, the hard-light body dissolving and fading away.

* * *

The research and surveillance base was built on the dark side of Nakira's largest moon. Though the rakir were not yet to the technological level to have invented telescopes, the base had been built with very long term observation in mind. As with other primitive sentient species the Council kept tabs on, the base would remain in use until the rakir developed the earliest forms of space flight. Once that happened, the research base would be dismantled, and moved to one of the other planets in the Nakira system, for more long-distance observation. First Contact would not be made until their space flight had developed to the point they were capable of leaving their own system.

That was the usual idea, at any rate. Unfortunately, due to the Affliction and now the slaver raids, the rakir were not going to make it to that evolutionary stage on their own. Without interference from the other, more advanced species in the galaxy, the rakir would be extinct within the next century. Sad as it was, pending extinction wasn't always grounds enough for a species to be uplifted, and the researchers had been trying to make a case for exception for the rakir for over a decade now.

As horrible as the slaver raids were, they might just tip that balance. If rakir were being removed from their home world, uplifting became one solution to stem that tide. It was either that, or be faced with a specially bred slave race kept on the black market, as it would be impossible to track down every kidnapped rakir. Some would slip through, and no species deserved to exist only as slaves. Moore's actions might be just enough to tip the Council's hand finally in their favor.

Melara had never intended to get involved in the political decision of a species' uplifting. As a Council Spectre, however, she was sent where the need was greatest, and when wind had reached the Citadel that rakir were being abducted, she was sent to investigate. That was nine months ago. During that time, she'd learned a great deal about the rakir, and had even managed to learn the basics of their language. Personally, she grew to greatly admire their culture, and what they as a people had endured. If the galaxy lost them, Melara had no doubt it would be all the poorer for it.

Miraculously, both the Prilekk and the infant were still alive when they landed at the base, and both were quickly passed into the hands of medics that had the training, expertise, and equipment to treat them. Lily went with them as they were taken to the base infirmary, Dae and the project head, Matron Neska, staying to meet with Melara and Vina, directing them toward a set of offices.

"Having the Prilekk alive gives us a huge edge," Neska said as they entered. "Sokka will consider her safe return worth a thousand treaties."

"Is there still a danger that the Ubuuta will think we are responsible for her aunt's abduction and torture?" Vina asked.

"So long as Sihra is capable of speech, no. Rakir cannot lie to each other to begin with. A lie releases tiny amounts of stress hormone and the rakir's incredibly sensitive sense of smell picks them up immediately. Even if they _could_ lie, Sihra's honor would not allow it. We saved her life, and so long as she's aware enough to know that and affirm it, Sokka will not doubt us."

"What about the infant?" Melara asked. "If he lives, well…surely the Ubuuta would be even more grateful at his return, especially considering he's male."

"Sadly, no," Neska said, her brow creasing with unease as she gestured at them to sit. Taking a seat herself, she sighed. "We have tried to track down the name of the other female you found, the infant's mother. We have been able to identify only one female known to have a full pouch that has disappeared from Nakira. DNA samples will confirm her identity, but we believe she's most likely to be Gortada Renka from Lefordikri. She vanished shortly before the Prilekk, and her House believes she simply departed for another village."

"Is that common?"

"It is not _un_common," Neska said. "With fertile males in such short supply, they cannot rely on actual pairing any more. Traditionally, rakir pair off monogamously, much like humans ,turians, or asari. While a male or a female may dally with others through their adolescence, once they have chosen a mate they mate for life. Culturally, it has been extremely distasteful for them to have to put that aside in order to continue their species, but as more and more males are Stunted, they have no choice. Fertile males are far too valuable to limit to a single female. The moment she gave birth to a male infant, Renka did what many young females do…she travelled to another village, to stay with an allied House that has no more fertile males. The hope being, of course, that her male infant would turn out to be fertile. If so, that allied House would then have adopted him in and have access to an unrelated male to add to the bloodline. The chances he'd be fertile are extremely slim, of course- almost nonexistent, but they are desperate, and any hope is hope they cling too."

"But she was taken before she could get there."

"Yes. She left her home to make the journey, and never arrived. Now we know what happened to her. Sadly for the infant- fertile or not- he will never be welcome back."

"What? Why not?" Mel asked, startled.

"You have educated yourself a great deal on the rakir, Captain, but there is still much you do not know. The only value an infant that young has is to its parents, and even _that_ is cursory. Babies are not considered rakir, only…_potential_. In a highly predatory species of their advancement, it is foolish to devote time and resources to the disabled, sickly, helpless, or weak- and there are none more helpless and weak than young children. A rakir is not considered a rakir, with any rights, until it is old enough to leave the pouch and eat meat instead of milk- and it is even _worse_ for any child that is taken from its mother's pouch before it is old enough to leave on its own. If he lives, he will be considered weak…_pouchless_. It is a stigma that will follow him to adulthood. They will consider him to have survived not because of his own strength, but because others coddled him. To _any_ rakir, even the Ubuuta, that baby is absolutely nothing. Even being male, he is nothing. His only value lay while he was in the pouch. Taken from it, he is a non-entity. He will never have a name, a soul, or any honor in their eyes. They wouldn't even bother to kill him quickly, they'd just leave him to lay in the dirt until he starved, died of exposure, or was carried away by an animal."

"That is horrible!" Daenys said, astonishment and anger both coloring her voice.

"To us, yes, it is," Neska said. "To the rakir, it is just a harsh reality of life, the way they evolved. The weak die, the strong grow and breed, and so they become stronger. Perhaps once they are uplifted that attitude will change, but for now, it is just a sad aspect of their day to day struggle to live. No rakir will accept that baby."

"So what'll happen to it? If it lives, I mean?" Vina asked.

"I do not know, to be honest. It is possible one of my staff will adopt him. If he lives we will make sure he is cared for, but sadly, it is impossible to return him to his people. Still, having an infant male that young…he may help us to determine just what it is that triggers the rakir males to become Stunted when they hit puberty. Whether they accept him or not, he just may hold the key to curing their Affliction. Only time will tell."

Dae still looked upset and greatly disturbed. Reaching under the table, Melara took her hand and gave it a gentle squeeze. "What about the surveillance my wife mentioned? Moore had some way to get through the security grid-"

"Yes, but it is incredibly puzzling. That is what I wished to discuss with you."

She touched a command on the table, and a holographic image of the surveillance footage appeared hovering over it. It showed deep woods, so thick it was nearly jungle. Melara knew that once it became clear someone was getting through the outer grid surrounding the planet, they had created a secondary grid on the surface…something the rakir would not trip or even discover, but that would set off alarms in the research base that someone who wasn't supposed to be there had appeared. This new grid surrounded the major rakir settlements and a few of the smaller ones.

On the holograph, the grid energy was displayed as a faint shimmering red field. As they watched, a small animal crept through it without hesitation or alarm, before disappearing into the underbrush. A few minutes later, some new figures strode into view.

Melara's look blackened. "That is Moore," she said, noting the man in the lead.

"Yes, and they are carrying tranq weapons and stunners capable of rendering even a fertile male unconscious in milliseconds."

They watched as the men approached the field and then halted. They could see it, even though to a rakir's unique eyes it would be completely invisible. Moore stood a couple of feet from it, then pulled something out of his belt. Though she could see it quite clearly, Melara had no idea what it was. He held it toward the grid, and a huge section of the red curtain simply vanished. They stepped through, and it resumed immediately on their heels.

"It sounded no alarm," Neska told her. "We had no indication whatsoever they were there. By the time Navis recovered this footage, they were hours gone. Fortunately, this particular foray seems to have been fruitless for them. When they pass back through they are empty handed."

"Can I get a closer look at the device?" Melara asked. Neska touched a command and the image returned to Moore, zooming in closely on the thing in his hand.

It looked like some kind of thin slab of deeply black stone- onyx, perhaps, or obsidian. It had no controls or interface she could see. He simply held it up, and the barrier vanished.

"I have never seen anything like it," Neska told her.

"Nor have I. Whatever it is, we need to find Moore and get it away from him. If it can halt your security grid, it could be it's capable of more."

"I thought that Moore was dead," Neska said, blinking at her. "That a body was discovered bearing his dog tags?"

"We found a body and it was wearing his tags," Melara said. "However Lily did a DNA cross-check with one of Moore's samples…it wasn't him. Chances are he put the tags on that body in an attempt to make us think he'd been killed. Even _he_ had to know it would not buy him much time."

"I see. Still, now that we know how he was getting his slavers in, we have increased security, and the Council has graciously agreed to devote two more patrol ships to Nakira space. But, it remains that our main focus has to be getting the Council to grant permission to uplift, and getting the Ubuuta to sign a treaty."

"My contacts with Omega and the Traverse underground are still in effect," Melara said. "Moore sticks his nose out anywhere and I'll hear about it. In the meantime, I'll put the _Normandy_ on patrol in orbit as well."

"You are staying for a while, then?"

"For a while, unless I get a lead on Moore. Right now, as you said, the Prilekk is our top priority. I want to keep her safe while she's recovering. The moment we know she's going to live and speak on our behalf I want to head to the Citadel, give your evidence and put some pressure on the Council."

"I appreciate that Captain…and everything else you have done for us. The rakir will owe you a great debt if our work is successful. Thank you."


	3. Chapter 3

Daenys's concern over the young infant rakir- and her horror of the reality that his people would never accept him, even were he to survive- clearly had not dissipated as she followed Melara back toward the infirmary. Her brows seemed perpetually knit, and while Dae was not usually a 'chatterbox' as the humans would call it- she was also not usually this silent.

Mel looked at her worriedly as they stepped inside the medical facility, but her eyes were drawn away almost immediately as Lily waved her over.

"I do not know how they do it," the younger asari said as they approached. "It is astounding to me their sheer strength of will."

"Both still live then, I take it?"

"Yes, and look to keep on living. It will take several days of nutritive therapy before they will be completely out of the woods, but the doctors are confident. They think Sihra at least will be strong enough in the next two solar days to surgically remove her shackles."

"Has she spoken?"

"No, they are keeping her unconscious for the moment. The less stress on her right now the better, and being in this alien place would certainly be an incredible stress."

"I understand."

"How is the baby?" Dae asked. Lily looked over at her.

"Stable, it seems," Lily said. "With the proper protein formula he's been eating well. They're limiting it to tiny doses to keep from shocking his system but his very appetite is encouraging." Perhaps seeing something in her aunt's eyes, she said, "Would you like to see him?"

She led Mel and Dae over to the far corner of the room, to a small incubator pod. Within, curled on his stomach and bundled tightly in cloth to simulate the close environment of the pouch, was the tiny rakir infant. He looked no larger than a pound or two, his pale skin showing just the start of fur. Its color made him look as if he were dusted in gold.

His ears and closed eyes looked huge on his head, his mouth and nostrils almost nonexistent. His skull was obvious with his starvation, the bones in his hands as fine as a bird's.

"He is so small," Dae said softly as she looked.

"He is three months old," Lily told her. "When rakir are born, they are only about four inches, completely hairless, eyes sealed shut- almost embryonic, like most marsupials. They make their way to the pouch and then stay there, nursing constantly, until they're finally old enough to venture out on their own at about six months of age."

"That's a fairly fast rate of growth," Mel said, trying to ignore the way her bondmate was nearly nose down on the pod surface, softly cooing at the little being inside.

"Rakir mature relatively quickly, especially for a top-of-the-food-chain predator species. They reach puberty at ten years of age, and are considered full adults at fifteen. Their average lifespan is only about fifty years old at the moment, but a lot of that is due to the violent nature of their society. It is clear that they can live much longer than that in ideal conditions. The Ubuut was nearly seventy five when he was slaughtered, and may have made it another five years."

"Can you tell if he is Afflicted yet?" Dae asked, looking over. Lily shook her head.

"I was discussing that with the base doctors. They have only been able to examine a few bodies of prepubescent males, most left abandoned in the wild due to some kind of birth defect, or else young children just out of the pouch that wandered off or were killed through some accident. Comparing the results of those autopsies with those of grown male rakir, both fertile and Stunted, has not revealed any early indication system, no sign that might differentiate between a babe that might grow fertile, and one that will be Stunted. There were no notable variations in _any_ of the infant rakir males. So far, this young male matches those other infants, save for his protein deficiency, and that is due to his starvation. Still, they do not want to do any extensive testing on him until he is much stronger."

"Does he have a name?" Dae asked. Mel glanced at her with an internal groan as Lily looked surprised at the question.

"I…no, I do not believe so. Rakir are not named until they leave the pouch, and no one here has-"

"Well, he is out of his pouch now, and he needs a name."

"Dae, I'm sure they'll come up with one," Mel said gently.

"Every sentient being at least deserves the dignity of a name," Dae replied. "He still may not survive, right? He at least deserves to have _that_, to be a person, even if it is only for a short time."

"Well, why don't you name him then, Daenys?" Lily said with an encouraging smile. "I am sure the doctors will not mind."

Mel gave Lily a look, her niece returning a presumptively innocent one. Dae looked back down at the baby, then nodded.

"Aleu," she said, the asari word for 'warrior'. Lily smiled a bit, then nodded.

"I like it. What do you think, Mel?"

"_I_ think that I need to be getting back to the _Normandy_," she replied. "We will be staying for at least a few days, Lily. I am putting the _Normandy_ into a patrol orbit to further safeguard this system. You are welcome to stay here and help the doctors if you would like?"

"I would. Rakir physiology is fascinating and I would like to help if I can. Notify me when you call Grandmother, so that I can join in on the call."

"I will," Melara said, then looked at her wife. "Dae? Are you coming, or staying here to put more nose prints on their isolation pod?"

Daenys gave her a sharp look, then straightened. "I am coming. Lily, I will see you later."

"Try not to worry, Aunt Dae," Lily said, giving her aunt's bondmate a hug. "I will take good care of Aleu."

"I have no doubts."

On the way back to the shuttle, Dae looked askance at the Spectre walking beside her. "You are angry?"

"What?" Mel looked at her with a blink. "Angry? Why would I be angry?"

Dae's expression was knowing. "I know that we have had this conversation-"

"Dae, love…" Mel stopped at the entrance to the shuttle bay, facing her wife and pausing a moment to focus her thoughts before she met her eyes. "I know that you want children. My concern with _this_ has very little to do with that. I just do not want you to get too attached, that's all. I don't want you to get your heart broken if he doesn't make it."

"And if he _does_ make it?"

"Dae-"

"If he lives, he's going to need a family, Mel-"

"There is no reason that family has to be _us!_"

"There is no reason it should _not_ be!"

"Daenys, the same thing that has stopped us from having daughters is the same thing that makes this a _bad idea_," Melara replied. "I'm a Spectre and an Alliance special agent. You are a Thessian tactics officer _and_ a House assassin-"

"I could quit!"

"And what- buy a house somewhere? Raise him by yourself while I'm off for months on end in the deepest armpits of this galaxy?"

"We could stay on the _Normandy_ with you."

"_No!_ In case you've forgotten, my ship gets _shot at_ on a regular basis! Having you on board is one thing- you're my wife, a matron, and more than capable of defending yourself. _He's a baby!_ It's no kind of an environment for a child and it's far too dangerous!"

"So what happens then, Mel?" Dae asked, folding her arms. "We just…do not _ever_ have children, of any kind? Or do we wait until you retire and are ready to settle down somewhere? I know just as well as you do that the only thing that will make you retire before you are too old and feeble to lift a rifle any more is some kind of horrific injury that makes you physically incapable of continuing on!"

"That's not fair-"

"No, but it _is_ true. So far as I can see, my love, we have three options. We either never have children, I go somewhere and raise them with you 'stopping by' every few months-provided you are not just killed somewhere- or we raise them together aboard the _Normandy_. Those options do not change whether those children are asari, rakir, or spotted green toads."

Mel let out a sound that was both a sigh of frustration and a laugh, glancing at her wife. "You shouldn't talk about the krogan like that."

Dae shook her head, lowering her voice with a soft smile. "Mel, you _know_ what I mean."

She stepped forward, sliding her arms around Melara's waist, speaking gently. "I love you. That is never going to change. I know you want children, Mel…and I also know why you are terrified to have them."

Her bondmate didn't look at her, so Dae lifted one hand and gently took her chin, steering her gaze. "Your parents did not have it easy, Mel. I know that. There were a thousand different horrible things that got in their way, time and time again. They were beyond fortunate that they were able to finally have peace, to be together at last. They had to fight for it. They had to compromise. They had to make sacrifices, but that did not stop them having you or Irie. It was not always perfect, but you two had a _good_ life, and they gave you the best of everything they could. You were not deprived because your father had to go on missions and train N7 soldiers, sometimes for weeks on end. You _knew_ you were loved, and she was _always_ there for you, every time you needed her. _We_ have to fight and compromise as well, and I know whatever our circumstances, _you_ will always be there for your children as well, whenever they have need of you."

"It isn't that simple, Dae," Mel said softly.

"I know," she said gently, again meeting her love's eyes. "But there is no danger with that little boy, Melara. He cannot possibly _ever_ be Ardat-"

She knew immediately it was the wrong thing to bring up. Melara instantly stiffened, emotional armor as rigid as steel coming down behind her eyes, before she abruptly stepped back from her wife. "We need to get back to the _Normandy_," she said tautly, before she turned and strode through the door toward the shuttle.

Dae silently berated herself before she hurried after her wife. While she knew the hidden fear behind Melara's recent excuses against having a family, it was not a subject her wife handled well. She was terrified of having a daughter that would turn out to be Ardat-Yakshi. The fact that they were both asari made the risk very real, however infinitesimal it was.

_Even after all these centuries, the memory of what happened with Bethayla preys on her mind,_ she thought, and felt her own private misery, as small as it was. Dae knew without a doubt that Melara loved her…but she _also_ knew that had Mel's first love not turned out to be Ardat-Yakshi, the Spectre captain would be with _her_ now. She never would have given Dae a second glance.

Even now, Mel had a hard time letting go of her feelings for Beth. Dae had long ago learned to live with the idea that she would always be second in her own wife's heart, never quite measuring up to that particular ghost, that specific 'might have been'. She was all right with that. She grew up with Mel after all. She saw the pain she went through regarding Beth. She was aware that Mel's heart was taken when she started wooing her herself, decades later. It was not a secret nor had she gone into this blind. She was not jealous- rather, she was well aware of her fortune that Mel was with her now, and if she had the ability to cure Beth of her genetic curse she would have done so in a heartbeat. Sad as it occasionally made her that part of Mel's heart would always be secreted away for another, the happiness she had in her bondmate was far greater, and she was infinitely glad she had a hand in helping Mel to heal.

That did not mean, however, that her own happiness wasn't important. They were both at that age, when asari started to think about family. More and more over the last few years, her yearnings had turned toward raising daughters, nurturing and caring for the young. Mel's had too, however she tried to hide it, but her fear of having a daughter- only to go through with her what she had with Beth- it was a difficult obstacle to overcome.

It seemed to Dae that this little rakir presented the perfect answer, that he'd been put in their path for a _reason_. He needed someone, needed _them_. He would be outcast, taboo among his own people. He would struggle with that, feel isolated, out of place. He would have a hard time finding his own value and path in life. Dae wanted- with a ferocity that almost scared her with its suddenness as well as its power- to help him find that path. To show him that he was loved and valued for _who_ he was and not for the horrible thing that had happened to him and his mother at the start of his life. And she knew just as fiercely that, would Mel allow him into her heart, she would be an exemplary role-model and as wonderful a parent as her own had been.

To Dae, it didn't matter if her children were asari, rakir, krogan, or any other species out there. Every life was precious, and every child needed a home and someone to value them. While she still wanted the experience of being pregnant and giving birth (there was never any question in their relationship which one would take the task of carrying any daughters), she was more than happy to put that aside if it meant she still had the opportunity to be someone's mother.

_Perhaps if she opens her heart to this little rakir, when she sees having and raising a child is nothing to be afraid of, she will soften on us having our own daughters as well. _

Even as she thought it, she felt a bit of guilt. It wasn't right to manipulate Mel into making a decision she wasn't comfortable with, and this wasn't just Dae's call to make. They had to be a team, especially in matters such as this.

Her mind still on that helpless little boy in the infirmary, Dae silently climbed aboard the shuttle after her wife, and hit the control to close the door.

* * *

As highly advanced and sleek as the massive lab was, when the only illumination came from the equipment banks and all other light sources were extinguished, Irie always had the feeling she was in some sort of cave.

It wasn't a frightening cave, of course. It was comforting, well worn, secure. She had that sensation now as she sat down in the main control chair for the megascope, that comfort giving some ease to the nervous, excited energy fluttering in her stomach.

Like ghosts moving through the near dark around her, her lab team was quickly powering up the scope, making a thousand needed adjustments, double-checking the computers and the VIs to ensure that everything was exactly where it was supposed to be and functioning precisely as designed.

"We have two minutes to full power," Irie said, checking her own display.

"The booster relays are powered and functioning," her chief assistant- a human woman named Leanne King- glanced over from her station, the faint yellow light of her interface reflecting through her wild curls to give her almost a kind of halo. "All seven responsive and returning well."

"Our power transmitters are showing green across the board," someone called. Irie was too intent on her own work to note who it was, one wary eye kept on the transmitters herself.

This was their fourth attempt in six months to get the megascope online. The biggest problem was the sheer amount of power it required. Ninety different solar collectors worked around the clock for nearly a year in order to charge up the massive batteries buried beneath the facility. Each battery was the size of a seventy story building, and had taken nearly fifty years to construct and install- there were twenty of them. Because they were literally sitting on top of enough power to dissolve the entire planet, the hundreds of safety checks and installed fail-safes were necessary to make sure that didn't happen. There were ninety geth on the team that regularly inhabited the computer, only occasionally emerging to use their platforms now docked quietly on a lower floor. Without their instant calculations this wouldn't even be possible for at least another century.

Their first two attempts to power up the scope had resulted in overloaded transmitters that instantly shut down the system and required a partial recharge of the batteries. The third attempt, one of the transmitters had proven faulty, leading to an entire battery not adding its charge to the scope itself, which was more than enough to cause a failure of its activation.

Now, every micrometer of every bit of equipment from those batteries to Irie's chair had been inspected and reinspected a hundred times. They were ready to try again.

_If it fails this time, they may well pull our funding_, she thought as she input her final figures. Just as quickly, she pushed that thought out of her mind. While it was true this project had cost literally trillions of credits and had- as yet- not really provided anything but promising hypotheticals- the chances of them actually cutting her funding were slim, and for one vital reason.

None of them want to step on the toes of Del Shepard and Liara T'Soni's eldest daughter.

Whereas at one point, her sister might have had that same thought with a bit of bitterness, Irie accepted that she was granted some considerations because of her parentage. It was true, after all- she _was_ the child of the Hero of the Galaxy. It would be one thing if she were lazing about indolent, frittering her way through the galaxy as a spoiled brat, and taking advantage of her family name to live a life of decadence and ease. However, this work was necessary and promising, and she considered her family history as just one more resource toward getting it accomplished.

"We have ten seconds to full power," Irie said as the final checks were done. "Stand by for megascope activation in six…five…four…three…two…_one!"_

She hit the final command on her display, and instantly all indications around the room turned green, signifying activation. Deep beneath her, she fancied she could feel the strong hum of the city of buried batteries, as they all put their power forward into the scope at once.

"All transmitters holding solid, showing good across the board!"

"We have a successful activation, signal reaching the relay boosters in three, two, _one!_"

"Boosters one through three are active!"

"Boosters four through six are now active!"

"Ma'am, booster seven is showing active, we…_we have a return signal!"_

Irie's heart was pounding as her fingers flew.

_This is it. It is really going to work!_

"Activating Archer's projectors," she said, not missing even in the dark how every head in the room turned away from their station to focus on the center of the lab, even if their bodies did not follow suit. A warm glow began where they all looked, slowly illuminating their faces.

"Projectors active…my friends, we are receiving image!"

The glow had formed an oval in the air, roughly the size of a large elevator. For the first few moments that it was visible, the center of the oval was only hollow. Glancing through showed only the other side of the lab. As the image was received, however, it formed in the center of the oval as if on a view screen, coalescing into being until it was crystal clear. King let out a sound that was almost a cross between a laugh and a sob of joy. Irie, eyes wide, stepped out of her chair and approached the oval, staring in awe.

"We did it, ma'am," a batarian man said softly from the left. Without looking at him, Irie snapped her fingers and indicated his station.

"Report."

"Everything still green across the board. We are showing a stable horizon at Launch One, transmitters are working to optimum levels. We can maintain this image for five minutes at our current power levels."

"Are we recording?" Irie asked, though she knew perfectly well they were. However, to finally succeed and then lose documentation of what they were seeing due to a simple oversight, would be absolutely unthinkable.

"We _are_ recording, that is verified."

Irie stepped a bit closer to the oval. Looking through it was like looking through a window into three-dimensional space- though the 3D aspect of it was an illusion caused by the projectors. In the frame of the oval of light, the beautiful, swirling image of a galaxy shone with a serene light, looking almost close enough to touch.

"Readings?"

"We have target verification, gathering data now," King said.

"Location confirmed with red-shift differentials," the batarian said. "That _is_ Andromeda."

King turned from her own station and went up to Irie's side. "No one has ever seen Andromeda from this close before, gotten these kinds of readings. Doctor…there are no words! You were right. I mean, I never doubted for an instant but…oh, my God, you were _right_."

"We have two minutes left at this power level."

Irie didn't bother looking over, too rapt with what she was seeing. "Can we get closer?"

"Yes, we should be able to get an even closer image but it will cut our available power down to one minute."

"Do it, and verify everything is still recording," she said, her sharp eyes missing nothing as the image sailed in even closer to their sister galaxy.

"Data feeds are still at optimal."

"This is absolutely astounding!" King could not contain her excitement, her voice little more than a breathy squeal. "To be standing here, _to be seeing this_-"

"What are those?" Irie asked, her eyes narrowing in confusion.

"Wh-what?" King asked, peering closer at the image as Irie pointed. In the almost endless field of light from Andromeda's trillions of stars, tiny black specks- like grains of sand- could barely be seen. "I…I am not sure. That is strange…"

"Dovuk, can we focus the image on one of those specks and move in by 3000?" Irie asked.

"I can," he said. "But that would all but eliminate our power. You'd get about half a second of image before the scope shuts down."

"Do it."

"Yes ma'am. Coordinates input…zooming…._now_."

The image jumped, and for an instant- just an _instant_- something appeared in front of Irie's eyes that made her jolt with shock, taking a reflexive step back as her heart felt like it had stopped.

Then it was gone, the image and the oval both fading away as the power ran out.

King's enthusiasm seemed to have given way to shock as she gasped. "_Was that-?"_

Irie was already turning, her heartbeat having resumed in a thunder of anxiety as she all but rushed toward Dovuk. "Did it record? _Did it record?"_ she demanded as the main lab lights came back up.

"Y-yes," he said, his fingers shaking as they moved over his interface. "Yes, it recorded. I have the-"

"Pull up that final image now. Pull it up and put it on still."

"This is…_this isn't happening_," the batarian said under his breath, pale-faced as he did as she asked. The image came up on his personal display, and as she saw it Irie stiffened and went still.

King let out something that sounded entirely like a sob this time, with no mirth to it whatsoever, before her hand clamped over her mouth. Someone, Irie wasn't sure who, had come up beside her.

"Is that…is that what I think it is?" was asked in a fearful tremor.

Irie looked at the black ship hanging still and silent in front of the bright glow of stars beyond it. She looked at the triangular shape of it, the eight 'legs' hanging docile, and after a moment she was finally able to speak, even if it was only in a breathy whisper.

"Yes," she said. "Yes. It is a reaper."


	4. Chapter 4

Gerty Pradesh leaned back against the side of his small ship, taking a momentary break after having unloaded a few boxes of supplies from his cargo into the docking bay. Tugging out a cigarette and propping it on his lip, he activated his small charge lighter and touched it to the tip. As he bent his head to do so, part of his dark hair fell away from his neck, momentarily exposing both the curl of a tattoo, and a tiny glowing dot. The tattoo was of a dragon, 3D, and had been cleverly applied so that the glowing dot formed the eye of the beast. Even so, he almost unconsciously gave his head a shake, making the hair fall and cover it again.

If one were to look at Gerty, they would see a man who was most likely a merchant or even a pirate- and they wouldn't be far off the mark. Gerty ran supplies and merchandise on his small ship, the _Lily Fire_, and in his younger days not all of that merchandise had been legal and above-board. He'd put smuggling in his past, however, and no matter appearances he operated now strictly above board.

Mid-thirties, he was tall but looked taller thanks to his skinny build, no matter how he slouched. His father had been from Bangladesh, his mother from Edinburgh- he'd inherited his tan skin and dark hair, but her bright blue eyes and rather noticeable accent.

Bringing food and supplies to the Oasis Research Base had become one of his favorite runs. It was fast, it was easy, it paid decently-

He glanced over as a commotion at the entrance to the supply dock drew his attention. Dr. T'Soni, a travel case in one hand and a smaller locked case in the other, bustled in with her assistant on her heels. King seemed to be flustered about something, both women harried and hurrying. Gerty narrowed his eyes thoughtfully at the asari as he straightened from his lean.

_-and it's not terribly hard on the eyes._

As the pair drew closer, what King was saying became audible. "-will take nearly two days before we have enough of a charge to take another look. Surely the information can be transmitted-!"

"I would not trust information of this nature to a transmission, no matter how secure the channel," Irie replied. "And we cannot delay. Once the scope is recharged you need to gather more information. Look at the dwarf galaxies. LMC, Boötes, the SMC- the _entire_ local group if you can. Then simply send a response to my omni-tool-"

"You don't trust transmitting information on highly secure government channels but you want us to send it to your _omni-tool_?"

"All that needs to be sent is a simple 'yes' or 'no'. No further details are required. Captain Pradesh, thank the Goddess you have not yet left. I need passage."

Gerty lifted his brows slightly, drawing the cigarette out of his mouth and scuffing it out on the side of his ship as he let out a lungful of smoke. "Passage? With _me?_"

"Yes. I cannot wait for other transport, I need to leave for the Citadel immediately."

"The Citadel? I've got a repair supply bound for Praxita-"

"I will see that they get their supplies through other channels, and pay you twice what you would have made for the trouble," she said without hesitation.

"I don't know-"

"Three times."

He scowled faintly. "It's not the money that's an issue, ma'am. I have a reputation. I deliver my goods on time and as agreed."

"I understand, and I would not ask this of you, but this is incredibly important. I must speak to the Council immediately."

She did look very flustered and troubled, and behind her violet eyes he could see real fear. It was carefully schooled, but it was definitely there.

He glanced from her to King. _Her_ fear was far less schooled. She looked almost ready to vomit.

"All right, all right," he said. "Just keep in mind I'm not set up to carry passengers, and the trip to the Citadel is going to take a couple of days-"

"I am hardly concerned with luxury at the moment. Thank you Captain."

"C'mon. I'll show you on board."

Irie turned to King. "Do as I ask, Leanne. Check them out, and send me that 'yes' or 'no'."

"Should I contact your sister?" she asked.

"N-no, not yet. I believe she is engaged on a mission for the Council at the moment, near the Traverse. She needs to concentrate on that. She will no doubt learn of this soon enough."

She turned and headed after Gerty, who was waiting at his open cargo bay. He directed her inside, glancing momentarily toward King who was already rushing away back toward the main facility. Hitting the command to close the bay he directed Irie up to the small common area. Beyond a tiny mess and a cockpit, there was only a single set of quarters and a lavatory.

"Some excitement going on, hmm?" he said as emerged into the mess. "You ok? You look a little…shell-shocked."

"I am…I am still reeling a bit," she said. "I will be fine. It is just…a lot to process."

"I'd ask just _what_ is a lot to process, but given you don't trust transmissions I'm gathering telling a poor merchant off-hand is not a priority on your list. That's fine. I do have to ask though- no chance of me catching some weird plague or anything, is there? I'm not entirely sure what it is that you _do_, just that this is some kind of a research base."

"N-no, no, no chance of that. We do not do that kind of research. We are astrophysicists."

"Curiouser and curiouser," he said with a smile, then blinked as she visibly startled, staring at him.

"Do not say that!"

"I'm sorry, I was just quoting-"

"I know who and what you were quoting!" she said sharply, then let out a breath, shaking her head. "I am sorry, I should not have snapped. I just…have bad associations with Lewis Carroll, and _Wonderland_ in particular."

"You are just becoming more and more fascinating, aren't you?" he said with an affable grin, then gestured around. "That's the lavatory there. It's not much more than a toilet and a shower, but it gets the job done. Pantry should be plenty stocked so help yourself to whatever you want. I grew up on Indian and Scottish food so you'll find a lot of curry and potatoes- sorry if that's not to your taste. There's only the single bunk. You're welcome to it."

"I did not intend to put you out of your bed-"

"Don't worry about it. I've fallen asleep more than once at the helm. I have no problem crashing there. It's more comfortable than it looks. Make yourself at home. I'll get us in the black and on our way."

He headed up to the front, powering up the controls and releasing the docking clamps. Intriguing as it was to have a gorgeous asari stuck on his ship for a couple of days- and an incredibly famous one at that- her clear fear and troubled demeanor worried him.

_Astrophysicists? What could a bunch of eggheads possibly have discovered that would put her in such a fright? And what is it she's brought on my ship?_

He believed her when she said it wasn't any kind of contagion, but that didn't necessarily mean it wasn't _dangerous_. She clearly thought it was important enough to rush off to the Citadel frantically rather than rely on secure transmissions.

_You wouldn't think _anything_ could scare the daughter of- _

He broke off mid-thought, horror coming over him. He'd completely forgotten. He set the auto with a stab of his finger and surged out of the chair, hoping to warn her. As he got through the door into the small mess, however, he saw it was too late.

Irie was standing in the doorway of the living quarters. She had clearly been about to step out into the mess again, when she came face to face with his hard-light VI. The look on her face-

He groaned internally. "I'm sorry! I'm _so_ sorry, I completely forgot. She's set to power on the moment I activate the helm. She's fully integrated, my only 'crew'. I can't shut her off without shutting down the computer, but I can alter her settings-"

Irie lifted a hand in his direction, an almost delicate gesture to hush him. Her brows knit, her eyes aqueous though she had managed to school her expression. She did not look away from the VI standing silently in front of her.

Though most VIs were gold and amber in color, shimmering and clearly artificial- even with their hard-light forms- Gerty had clearly put a lot of work into his. It presented in natural colors, looking like a real human woman- if real human women could emanate a soft bluish-white light. It made her look ghostly, angelic.

Perhaps if she had been visibly artificial like other VIs, even ones of _this_ kind, Irie may not have had the reaction she did. Seeing one so modified, her emotional state already in turmoil, she could feel her resolve crumbling.

It felt like some kind of omen, a solidification to accentuate her already troubling discovery. Lifting a shaking hand, her fingers hovered over its cheek a moment before she crumpled back. She caught herself on the door frame with one hand, the other covering her face as the tears began.

"Go to the helm," Gerty ordered in a firm voice as he hurried past the VI to her side. "Go to the helm!"

The VI turned and walked off toward the helm, but he barely noticed, taking gentle hold of the doctor. Steadying her, he guided her over to the chair at the small mess table.

"Here. Here, sit down. I'll get you some water. I'm so sorry. Damn, I'm _so sorry_. It was careless of me to forget. I'll change her settings immediately."

As he turned to fetch a bottle of water and a napkin, he heard her speak.

"I thought they were illegal."

"It's..._kind of_," he said apologetically. "Modifying one to look so…_real_-well, I'm risking a stiff fine for that. Just having one of…well, _her_…isn't illegal, just a bit frowned upon. Most people think it's insulting to her name, a mockery."

"Then _why_ do you have her?" Irie asked, anger coming through as he approached, water in hand. _"Why make her look so real?"_

"I'm not a creeper if that's what you're afraid of," he said. "There's nothing…_weird_ going on. She's just my VI-"

"You could have any kind of VI that you wish! You picked _that one_ on purpose, you modified her to make her look real _on purpose_! What was your reason?"

"Hey." He set the water and napkin down in front of her, then crouched as he only had the one chair. "I feel like shit, ok? I'm sorry I forgot. I should have warned you at least. I'm just a pathetic human, that's all. The War…_she_…happened so damn long ago from my perspective, and I keep forgetting that there are real people, here and now, that _knew_ her."

"Knew her, cared about her, _loved her!"_ Irie said furiously. "And who do not wish that she be mocked like this!"

"It wasn't my intention to mock," he said. "Look, I grew up on stories about the War. _Everyone_ did. She was my hero when I was a kid. We used to play 'Shepard and Collectors' in the colony when I was a little boy. Or, we'd pretend we were soldiers battling Reapers, each one fighting to be 'Shepard'. I watched all the vids, read all the stories. I came upon the old VI a few years ago in an Elcorian market. It was shit, old and buggy and nearly broken. There's not much for a single person to do on long supply runs, so I used the time to fix her and integrate her to monitor auto and the rest of the systems- give me a hand on occasion. I got her working again, but she said the most stupid shit, so I fixed her voice and her speech protocols. Then I found a black market upgrade program and kept tinkering with her."

He sighed, shaking his head. "Look, this is embarrassing, ok? But like I said…it's easy to get bored out here. I'd have her narrate her old news stories or the books written about her…just to hear a voice, you know? To feel like I wasn't out here by myself. I mean, I normally keep to myself anyway. This ship isn't big enough for an actual crew and I do like my solitude. But everyone gets lonely at some point, and listening to her telling my favorite stories from when I was a kid…it was just a comfort. That's all. I didn't do it to mock her and I didn't do it for some weird fetish, and I _certainly_ didn't intend that she upset you."

She looked at him silently, before she almost studiously wiped her cheeks. Searching her face he said, "I will change her interface. Make her look and sound completely different-"

"If you do not mind, I would like to see her," she said softly. He lifted a brow briefly, before he shook his head warily.

"I'm not sure that's a good idea-"

"Captain Pradesh, I am an asari of matron years, old enough to have seen your great-grandparents in their swaddling clothes. Please. I would like to see her."

He looked troubled a moment, before he sighed and straightened to his feet. "Fine. Whatever you want."

Going to the door to the helm he opened it. "Come back in here please," he said. The VI stepped back past him and walked over to the center of the mess, standing silently. Irie stood up, apparently composed, but Gerty didn't miss the way one hand stayed firmly on the table, bracing herself.

Unwilling to leave her, he stayed in the helm doorway, looking toward the ship controls so as to give her at least some semblance of privacy. Apparently this was not enough, for after a moment she looked at him and spoke softly. "Can you leave us for a moment?"

He scowled, then nodded. "Yeah, all right. I'll be up here."

As the helm door shut behind him, Irie looked at the VI ghost of her father. Other than the shifting blue-white light under its skin, flowing slowly like water through a lazy stream, the resemblance was spot on. The damned thing even _stood_ the way she had.

Irie had long ago come to terms with her father's passing, and had dealt with her grief. But grief was a strange thing…it never really left you, you just learned to make it quiet and- in time- even forget it was there. Pictures and smells and songs would bring it back sometimes, dragging nostalgia and love along with it, but for the most part it stayed asleep.

Yet when she'd stepped out of the room and come face to face with this facsimile, Irie had been unexpectedly struck. For a moment, it was as if it truly _was_ Shepard's ghost standing before her, that the woman had dragged herself back from whatever lay beyond this life for a fight that now, it seemed, may still not be done.

In the wake of her discovery of reapers around Andromeda, and then coming face to face with her dead father, Irie's soul had been shaken to its core.

_But it is not her. It is just a copy. A very _good _copy, but a thing all the same, unfeeling and insentient. A poor ghost indeed._

Even so she felt the tears rise in her eyes, her voice shaking ever so slightly as she spoke. "Do you know me?"

"According to extranet files, you are Dr. Irie Miranda T'Soni, noted astrophysicist, popular musical artist, and heir to the T'Soni House of Thessia."

The voice. The voice was perfect as well, if a bit formal. Irie let out a bitter, sad little laugh. "Yes, 'according to extranet files'," she said softly, then felt the tears spill. She took a shuddering breath, wiping her eyes.

"Bába, I have found reapers," she said in a low, trembling voice. "They are around Andromeda. No one has-…no one has been able to get a close, real-time look at Andromeda, you know- because of the speed of light we have only been able to see it vaguely, as it was 2.5 million years ago. But I changed that. I…it is not important how, I suppose, but I was able to create a way to see it much closer, and much closer to real time. Only a few years parted from the present, instead of a few million. And _they_ were there. _They_ were there, surrounding it, just…"

She covered her mouth, shaking. "I do not know what to do, Bába. I do not know why they are there. Are they dormant? Are they on their way _here?_ Was everything you fought for…was it all in vain? Or are there people and species we do not even know, millions of years away from us, fighting and dying and suffering through Cycle after Cycle the same as we did? Can we help them? Why are they doing this? The Reapers…_why_ are they? _Why are they_? I…"

She shook her head, choking back a sob and steadying herself again. She bent of the table, hands pressed to the surface as she braced herself, then shook her head again. "I do not know what to do. Tell me what to do, Bába."

"I would need more information to process a suitable strategy."

Irie let out another bitter laugh, straightening and wiping her cheeks. "Look at me," she said softly to herself. "I am over three hundred years old. I am a widow with a grown daughter. I have four degrees in astrophysics and mathematics, and I am talking to a VI as if it were my dead father…as if it can _really_ give me advice. How ridiculous is this?"

"I do not understand the query."

"Just…it is not important," she said, waving a hand dismissively, before hugging herself tightly, staring at a point in the middle of the empty table. After a long pause she said, "Could you do me one favor, VI?"

"Ready."

"Could you just…tell me it is going to be ok?"

A moment, and then she felt a hand rest gently on her shoulder.

"It's going to be ok, Irie," her father said kindly, just as she always had when Irie was a child and lost in the turmoil of growing up. "I promise you. It's going to be ok."


	5. Chapter 5

A/N: Just a heads up. I only work three days next week, then I am off work until Dec. 11th. I will TRY to get a chapter or two up during this time but I don't usually succeed in posting from home, so there may be a rather long hiatus between this chapter and the next. I'm aiming to get the next chapter up Wednesday before I leave but as I have to get everything at work ready for my absence, I may not have time.

Please, forgive me. I DID at least try not to leave it on a cliffhanger this time!

On with the show!

* * *

Gerty was studiously scowling at his helm as he input commands, swiftly writing lines of code. As he heard the helm door open behind him, he cleared his throat, only half-glancing at Irie as she moved and settled into the tiny and mostly defunct co-pilot's chair.

"I have rewritten her voice and appearance protocols to a standard VI default. Another two minutes and she'll be someone completely different."

"Do not make the changes permanent," she said softly. He looked over at her. Her eyes were slightly darkened, indicating she had been crying, but there was no other sign of tears or trouble.

"Ma'am?"

"She is your VI, and you have put a lot of loving work and care into her. I was wrong to call her a mockery. She is…a tribute, I suppose. At least to you. It is wrong of me to ask you to change that forever. Do not change her permanently unless it is your choice."

He searched her face, unsure, then nodded. "I have saved her appearance, voice, and personality profile on a separate line of code. I was going to wipe it but…maybe I'll hang on to it for now."

He quickly finished the changes and saved them, rebooting the VI. "There. Good as new. Or…default, anyway. I really am sorry about that."

"You did not do it intentionally. I am sorry for my reaction."

"Now _you_ haven't got anything to apologize for. I can't imagine coming face to face with one of my parents in someone's banged up merchant ship."

She looked at him with soft sympathy. "You have lost your parents?"

"Yeah. My father died when I was just a baby. I don't remember him at all. My mother took me and raised me in Edinburgh- that's how I got this charming accent. She passed away in an accident when I was nineteen."

"I am so sorry for your losses."

"And I'm sorry for yours," he said.

Irie nodded, leaning back in the chair and looking almost wistfully out into the stars. After a moment, he colored and cleared his throat. "I…have to apologize again, but I'm trying _really_ hard not to be terrified."

"Terrified?" she asked, looking at him.

"It's just…the VI records everything it hears or says automatically to a log. I know I left the room but that log was scrolling as I was fixing her coding, and-"

She sat up, visibly alarmed. "You heard what I said?"

"W-well, I kind of…half-_read_ what you said, out of the corner of my eye. I was trying not too but…"

She said something he didn't catch, lowering her head and touching the bridge of her nose in a clearly exasperated pose.

"I'm really _really_ sorry," he said. "I am, but like I said, I'm also trying not to be scared out of my mind. You seriously found…you found _reapers?_"

"Gerty," she sat forward, putting her hand on his arm and looking at him firmly. "This news cannot leave this room. You cannot tell anyone, do you understand? This information, were it to get out, would cause a galaxy-wide panic."

"It's already causing a _ship-wide_ panic," he said worriedly. "No, no, I get it. I won't tell a soul, I swear. I mean, I can see why you don't want it transmitted but…you're _sure?_ You really found reapers? Are they heading _here?_"

"I do not know. We do not have enough information yet." She sighed, dropping her hand. "My project is not classified. You already know the worst of it. I suppose it could not hurt to share the rest of the details."

"Trust me, I'm all ears."

"We have been working on a form of telescope which would allow us to look far deeper into the universe than has ever been possible, in real-time."

"I…am not a science geek, I'm sorry. A telescope? Don't we already have those?"

"Yes, but most telescopes are limited to the time and space in which they exist," she said. "For example, if I were to plant a telescope on Earth's moon, and try and look at the Andromeda galaxy, I would see the galaxy as it existed 2.5 million years ago, as that is how long the light leaving the galaxy has to take in order to reach my telescope lens."

"Yeah, ok, I see that."

"_My_ telescope is different. It can look at Andromeda from the Oasis Research base, with only about a ten year red-shift variance. That is, I can see Andromeda as it looked _ten_ years ago, as opposed to 2.5 million years ago."

"Wow, that's impressive," he said. "How the hell do you manage that?"

"We launched specially designed relay transmitters out into dark space just beyond the edge of our galaxy. Using enormous amounts of power, we can charge these transmitters to create an infinitesimal worm hole, a miniscule Fold in the fabric of space-time. It eliminates most of the distance between our galaxy and Andromeda by bypassing the space and time in between. We can then use the scope to peer through this Fold and see Andromeda with only that minor variance."

"And when you did this, you saw reapers."

"Yes. We had our first successful session this morning, and we discovered reapers around Andromeda. We were only able to get a single close up image, and we have no information as to whether they are in motion or dormant."

"So they could be putting the Andromeda galaxy through a similar Cycle as they did ours..."

"Or they could be coming _from_ the Andromeda galaxy to here, to see what happened to their brethren."

"God, I feel sick," he said, covering his face momentarily.

"As do I. The Council must know about this discovery immediately, but to transmit even on secure channels risks the Broker or others getting ahold of the intel. If it leaks into the populous there will be a major panic. I cannot afford to wait until we know what the reapers are doing- the fact of their existence alone is cause for alarm. Still, we must know more."

"So you asked your assistant to look at the dwarf clusters while you were heading to the Citadel."

"Yes. Questions must be answered. Are they moving? Are there more around the dwarf galaxies as well, or do they just focus on major spiral galaxies? Is it every galaxy in our local cluster? For all we know, it could be that every galaxy in the known universe has their own reapers, perpetuating their version of the Cycle. If so, the scope of their crimes is even further beyond reason."

"If they come _here_, how are we going to fight them?" he asked. "If they keep coming, how could we possibly fight them? They've never been able to get the Crucible to work again- for God's sake, they do tours inside the damned thing. It has a bloody gift shop! And even if it _did_ work, will they just keep coming and coming, in infinite numbers-?"

She touched his arm again. She understood his fears- they were her own, as well- but she felt she had to console him. "We cannot get ahead of ourselves with speculation. This is why I did not want others to know. It is horribly frightening. But we have no more information other than the fact of their existence millions of light-years away from us. Even reapers showed no ability to travel that amount of distance any faster than we were able too. The ones that invaded here had to use FTL and the relay system the same as we. They are not going to show up tomorrow, even if there are ones closer than Andromeda. Until we know more we cannot lose ourselves to panic. Not yet."

"Your sister is a soldier, isn't she? She's a Spectre, a hero, like your father was. Would she be able to fight them if they show up?"

"My sister and my father have a great deal in common, but let me make this clear- they are two _separate_ individuals. I know if she had to, Melara would fight to the bitter end, possibly even win, but that alone and the fact of her heritage is not enough to guarantee any level of success. My father was an incredibly strong and incredibly unique individual. There is no replacement for her. The rest of us can only do what must be done and hope it is enough. My sister will fight. As will I, and my mother, and this entire galaxy. But as I said- they are not arriving here tomorrow. Right now we must stay rational, gather more information, see what the reapers are actually up to. For all we know, what I saw were dead reaper shells that pose no threat whatsoever beyond curiosity. We know little to nothing at this point, so we may as well assume the best."

He nodded, still feeling sick. He could feel her eyes on him for a long moment before she spoke again.

"When I go and see the Council I will need you to come along with me."

"What? Why?"

"Now that you are aware of the situation they need to know that, and be reassured that you are not a risk, and do not intend to go passing the information around."

"I wouldn't do that! I don't want a panic any more than you do."

"That is as may be, but I do not know you beyond in passing, Gerty. They do not know you at all. They will need that reassurance."

"Bloody hell. Fine. I'll 'reassure' them I won't go blabbing around."

"Thank you."

He grunted with a nod, then looked at her. "Hey, you still look beat. You should get some rest."

When she paused, he scowled again. "I'm _not_ going to go transmitting any- _good fuck_. _Some_ trust would be nice. Here. Tune your omni-tool to my helm. If I try to transmit anything it'll let you know instantly, ok?"

She colored a little bit, but he noticed she still tuned her omni-tool. "I did not mean to upset-"

"No, whatever, it's fine. I get it. Just…go get some rest."

Irie rose from her seat and retreated back into the small quarters. On the way, she passed the VI standing in the middle of the mess. It now looked like any other VI, gold and amber and completely artificial, bearing an unrecognizable face. She said nothing to it, and it completely ignored her.

Going into the room she shut the door then lay down on the tiny bunk. Emotional exhaustion, coupled with physical, drew her quickly down into sleep despite her racing and troubled thoughts.

She never realized that, in all the excitement, she'd completely forgotten what day it was.

* * *

Melara was no less tense that evening as she stood in the Nest. Dae had long ago noticed that when her wife was tense, she always became the 'captain'; adopting a stiff military posture with her hands clasped behind her back. That she was doing so in preparing for a conversation with her mother…even _this_ conversation…was troubling.

Dae had set a few things out, looking around as a soft chime suggested Mel's call had been answered. Her bondmate activated it, and Lily's hard-light body appeared nearby.

"I was just about to call Mama," Mel said to her. "Do you have time?"

"Yes, I have a while."

"How is the baby doing?" Dae asked as she came up to Mel's side, laying a soft hand at the small of her wife's back, just above her tightly gripped hands. She tried to send out comfort, relaxation, and love in an attempt to loosen her posture, but if Mel felt it she gave no real sign.

"He is still holding on. No better, but no worse as of yet."

"I am putting in the call," Mel said, activating her omni-tool. "Linking you in."

A moment later another soft chime sounded, and two hard-light figures appeared in the room beside Lily.

Liara T'soni was seated in a chair, as serene and elegant as always. She was wearing a loose and fairly casual dress, which did nothing to hide her very swollen belly. She kept a hand rested on it throughout the conversation, the other fiddling almost obsessively with something around her neck. Though both her daughters were matrons- one with a grown daughter of her own- Liara was not yet herself a matriarch. She had given birth to Irie notably young by asari standards, and had become a grandmother at the age most asari were just starting to think about their first children.

She smiled warmly when she saw the group there, rising from her chair and immediately moving forward to embrace Melara. "My sweet little one," she said softly. "It is good to see you."

"It's good to see you too, Mama," Mel replied. "How are you feeling? Is everything going all right?"

She held her mother by the shoulders as she looked down at her belly, and Liara smiled. "I am just fine, Mel. I have a few weeks to go yet, and we have both been strong and healthy."

"You're taking it easy, resting enough-?"

"I am _just fine_," Liara repeated. "I have been pregnant twice before. This one at least kicks me less often than you did. You were quite acrobatic."

Mel cleared her throat a bit, smiling slightly in embarrassment. "Mama…"

"Dae, it is wonderful to see you," Liara turned and hugged Daenys as well. "And it is good to see you are back aboard the _Normandy_. My daughter does not seem complete unless you are by her side."

"I hope that is true," Dae said with a happy smile.

"I know that it is."

"Hello, Grandmother," Lily said, stepping up. Liara turned to hug her too, fussing over her momentarily. Then Lily looked over at the silent figure standing behind Liara, almost as stiff and square-shouldered as Mel was. "Hello again, Sam. It is good to see you."

"It's good to see you too, Lily," the human woman replied, then cleared her throat, nodding stiffly at Melara. "Captain."

Mel just looked at her, narrowing her eyes ever so slightly. In reply, she felt a slight pinch from Liara's hand where it rested on her arm. Grudgingly, she nodded a greeting. "Doctor."

Another pinch and she inwardly sighed. "I hear your work is going well," she said conversationally.

"Yes, as well as can be expected," she replied.

"We have continued to make some discoveries," Liara said. "Sadly, no more of those particular artifacts at least, but we are chasing some rumors-"

"Mama, those 'rumors' can wait for a while."

"I did not mean I am running around the Traverse eleven months pregnant, Mel. I am not putting myself into harms' way. I meant digging through data, old records. Mundane, boring, safe desk work. Hardly interesting at all."

Her light teasing made Mel huff again, but the small smile showed it was not taken badly. Feeling Dae's light touch Mel remembered merely catching up was not the purpose of this call. Remembering that brought into light a glaring absence.

"Wait a moment. Where is Irie? Was she not going to connect in?"

"I attempted to call her at the research base, but her assistant told me she was unavailable," Liara told her.

"She couldn't have forgotten."

"She has been working long hours on that project, and I know she felt she was close to success. She was very excited about it," Liara told her. Mel activated her own omni-tool and attempted to contact her sister's. When she received no response, she frowned.

"She's not answering. Her assistant didn't say anything more?"

"Only that they were extremely busy and that she was unavailable. She is probably neck deep in the final stages of her work, about to make a breakthrough," Liara said. "She can be forgiven for forgetting."

"It's just not like her," Melara said with a frown.

"I am sure Mama is fine, Mel," Lily said kindly. "She has been working for decades on that project. It is her dream. If she is close to making it work she will be lucky if she knows which month it is, let alone which day."

"Perhaps she has found a romance," Dae said, trying to ease her bondmate's concern. "She may have different stars in her eyes than the normal ones out in space."

Mel gave her a dry look, and Lily's giggle didn't help. Though the young asari doctor missed her father Evik, he had died just over two decades before. It would do her mother good, she thought, to find a new love.

Liara, however, looked over at her grand-daughter. "What of you, Lily? Have you found someone that has put stars in your eyes?"

Lily immediately blushed, and Liara laughed gently. "I am just teasing you, sweet one. You have more than enough time for that."

It did not escape any of them that they were once again avoiding the entire point of this call. Sam stepped forward, lightly touching Liara's arm. When the asari looked at her, she gave her a meaningful look and a slightly arched brow. Liara nodded, gently patting her hand.

"I know," she said softly. "You would think after so long, this would not still be such a difficulty."

Looking at Mel she said, "I felt so horrible this morning," she said. "I woke cheerful, started making breakfast. It wasn't until nearly half the morning had gone by that I even remembered the date…how can I be upset with Irie for forgetting something I very nearly forgot myself."

"Mama, hey…you can't kick yourself for that. Bába wouldn't like it."

"No, she would not," Liara said softly. "I put on some old vids I still have, of her with you and Irie when you were small. That one summer we first went back to Virmire, do you remember?"

"I remember I nearly got a layer of skin peeled off with a wicked tongue-lashing after I got myself stuck on the cliffs for an afternoon, trying to raid one of the bird nests."

"Yes, you scared us both half to death with that stunt. Watching her smile, hearing her voice…seeing you two so small and happy with her. I thank the Goddess every day that I had the chance to know her."

"I remember once when we ambushed her behind the house with water balloons," Dae said with a smile. "When you were still on Thessia. She'd shown us how to make them the weekend before."

Mel grinned. "She wasn't expecting that. Three of us pelting her from the trees without warning…the _look_ on her face. Ooh, I thought we were gonna get it."

"As I recall, you _did_ 'get it'. She dropped all three of you in the pool, fully clothed," Liara said.

"Yes, and you did nothing to help us," Mel joked.

"You earned that dunking all on your own. I was not going to risk her doing the same to me."

They continued to talk, Liara eventually sitting down again, her hand once more clasping to the dog tags she still wore around her neck. They talked about their memories of Del- not her heroics or her battles or her career as a soldier, but about her as part of their family, part of their lives. They had gathered like this to do so- no matter where they were or how far apart- every year on the anniversary of Del's death. Lily usually just listened and laughed along with the tales. She had been very young when Del Shepard had died, not even walking or speaking yet. She never told anyone-not even her own mother- but she _did_ have a single memory of her grandfather. It was the earliest thing she could recall, vague and foggy with distance and youth, but still very real. She remembered sitting on her grandfather's lap, feeling her arm around her, the warmth of her holding her close. She remembered feeling sleepy there, and safe, and looking out to see her mother and her aunts and her grandmother nearby.

That was all. It was only a moment, but it was all she had, and she clung to it closely.

This year was the first day this anniversary had been joined in by Liara's new bondmate. Samantha Williams was a human doctor, an archaeologist, and she had met Liara on a dig- one that had turned out quite interesting, in the end. Lily knew Liara had had a very difficult time at first, allowing herself to let Sam in, to realize that by caring for her and allowing herself to have a comfort and companion again, she was not replacing Del in any way.

She remembered Liara once saying that Del had made her promise that she would someday find someone else- but even that promise had not eased the heartache she'd gone through when it had finally come about. Now, it was good to see her grandmother happy and cared for, living her life and bringing new love into their family. That got her thinking about Irie again, and how she hoped her mother would someday do the same- that she would realize that finding a new love did not somehow invalidate the love, life, or happiness she'd had with Evik…it just opened the door for more.

They talked for a couple of hours. In the end, the small group joined hands and stood together in a moment of thoughtful silence, before Mel hugged her mother once more and urged her to get some rest. Goodbyes were exchanged, somewhat tearful, before Liara and Sam signed off the call. Lily followed suit a moment later.

Dae wordlessly hugged her wife for a long moment, before she softly kissed her cheek. "I will be downstairs if you need me," she said softly.

Melara nodded gently, listening as her wife departed the Nest before she turned to her small drink service. Silently, she carefully poured a glass of whiskey, then drew out a silver case. Opening it revealed a set of gold-label cigars. Selecting one as if picking a fine wine, she took it and the glass over to her small sofa, sitting down.

She had taken up smoking the cigars briefly around the time Del had died. The habit didn't stick, and now she only smoked a single cigar a year, and only on this particular day. It was her way of honoring her father.

Touching a nearby pad, she selected a song and directed it to play softly. She lit the cigar, the smell of the smoke immediately filling her with comfort, as if Del stood in that very room.

Taking the whiskey, she lifted it into the air in silent salute as the first strains of _Blind Hope_ began to play.


	6. Chapter 6

Two days of patrolling Nakira solar space showed no return to the planet by Holder Moore or any of his slavers. Unfortunately, Melara's underground contacts also reported no word of Moore poking his greasy, evil head up anywhere else thus far. It made her simultaneously hope he had died on that moon after all- escaped the crash to blunder into a lava pit, perhaps; and worry that he was up to something even more nefarious than sneaking onto a sanctioned world in order to kidnap and torture fresh slaves.

She was starting to feel restless, agitated. Every molecule of her body was screaming at her to do something, yet at the moment there was nothing she _could_ do. She could not report to the Citadel without knowing for certain they had the Prilekk alive or dead, and she could not chase after Moore with no leads.

She rose that morning to find that Dae was not in bed. Her bondmate had taken to shuttling back and forth to the research base on occasion. Melara knew why, but she said nothing about it, and never accompanied her. Lily had pretty much remained solely on the base, helping the doctors with their rakir patients and updated Mel as to their progress via QED.

The absence of her bondmate this morning irritated her more than it should have, and she looked over her endless reports with only half a mind to the work at hand. Not helping her mood was her repeated, failed attempts to reach her sister. Irie was not answering her omni-tool, and every query sent into the Oasis base only returned with 'Dr. T'Soni is not available to speak. We will have her contact you as soon as she's free'.

She had not been 'free', apparently, in two whole days. It was unlike Irie to miss the anniversary of their father's passing, and it was very unlike her to not even drop a hasty message to let her family know she was ok.

_She doesn't call me by tonight and I am taking this ship to the Oasis base to see her for myself_, she thought, then blinked as her console suddenly flashed with an incoming communication.

For a moment, she thought it actually was Irie calling, before she realized the small avatar was not her sister, but her niece. Accessing the call she said simply, "Report."

Lily blinked, a little taken aback by the clinical tone. "Mel, you will probably want to come down to the base. They have decided that the Prilekk's condition is stable enough to wake her and speak to her."

Mel straightened. "I will take a shuttle right down."

"Good. I will have them prepared for your arrival."

* * *

Lily met her at the door of the infirmary. Mel did not even glance in the direction of the infant's bassinette as she followed her niece within, the younger doctor already speaking.

"As you know we successfully removed her shackles yesterday morning. She is still very weak physically, but her hearts and her vitals are strong enough to risk the shock of waking. You spoke to her briefly in the shuttle when we rescued her. Both I and Neska thought it would be best for her if she saw you first again upon awakening. She will at least know, hopefully, that she can communicate with you. That may stave off any attempt to attack."

"You think she might attack?"

Lily looked at her dryly. "She's rakir. She's far too weak and we have her gently restrained, but that does not mean she will not attempt it. Right now physical exertion is not what she needs, even just fighting against her bonds."

"I see. Well, I'll do what I can. My rakiri is still only just above rudimentary."

"You just need to speak to her first," Neska said, overhearing as they drew closer. "We have a translation collar to put on her that will change galactic into rakiri and vice versa, which should handle any further conversation problems."

"Why not simply put it on her before waking her?" Dae asked suddenly, having drawn up beside Lily. Mel glanced over at her, not missing the fact that her bondmate had the infant bundled in its make-shift pouch and wrapped in her arms.

"Everything that has been done to the Prilekk since she was stolen from her home world has been done against her will," Mel said. "She was muzzled, shackled, and tortured. _Nothing_ gets put on her again without her permission."

"Precisely. She has been violated enough," Neska agreed.

"I understand," Dae said softly. Mel met her eyes a moment, before she turned back to the biobed. The rakir upon it looked only slightly better than she had after being pulled from that wicked box they'd found her in. She'd put on only a small amount of weight and still looked sunken and starving. Her muscle tone was little to nonexistent. While her shackles and muzzle were now gone and the wounds treated, they still made ugly red slashes over her face, wrists, and ankles. Nearby, several other doctors waited nervously, along with a couple of security commandos. Clearly, Neska was taking no chances.

The matron nodded at Lily, who stopped the flow of chemicals keeping the rakir unconscious. Touching her aunt's elbow lightly she whispered, "It should not take long."

Only a few moments later Sihra started to stir slightly, her nostrils widening a moment before her eyes suddenly snapped open. Though fogged still with the remnants of the drugs, they focused quickly and with furious intent on Mel.

"Prilekk, nikoga," Melara said quickly. "Feshata ki aki no."

"Neroki po to posato," came the rasping response.

"Mi tami Melara," she said.

The rakir grimaced, glaring. "_Detrak_."

Neska looked amused. "I suppose we do look a bit like Nakirian detrak."

"Asari," Melara said to the rakir evenly. Then she gestured at the others, introducing them and once again reaffirming that they were not her enemy, before describing the collar.

As she spoke, Sihra shifted a bit, testing her restraints, before her eyes wandered around the room. She was clearly confused at what she was seeing, and that confusion strengthened her struggle a moment. One of the commandos started forward, halting when Neska raised a hand. Sihra, fixing on the motion, bore her broken teeth.

"_You are not our prisoner,"_ Melara said again in rakiri. _"We rescued you from those who took you away from your people, the ones who bound and tortured you."_

"_I am bound now!"_

"_You are injured. You are restrained only for your safety, and we will remove the restraints if it becomes clear you will not attack us or cause yourself more damage."_

Sihra grimaced. _"And this 'thing'…collar?"_

"_I have learned some of your language, but only a few of my kind know it. The collar will allow you to understand us when we speak, and we you."_

"_Stunted magic…"_ she growled. _"Why should I trust any of you?"_

Melara lifted a brow, then reached out and drew a dagger from her belt, laying it over Sihra's throat.

"_Because I could kill you now, and do not,"_ she said with a glower. _"Because we could have killed you in your sleep, and did not. And because we are your only chance to go home again, Prilekk."_

Sihra snarled again. _"Only cowards kill one weaker than themselves. Only cowards would kill one asleep or bound."_

"_And we are not cowards, Sihra,"_ Melara said. _"We are strong, and we are not your enemy."_

Nostrils flared again, and Mel knew that the rakir was weighing her scent, searching it for lies. When she looked over at Neska, the Matron displayed the collar.

"_We force nothing on you,"_ she said in rakiri as well. _"Your choice, Prilekk. Always."_

"_Put the damn thing on."_

Moving gently, Neska fastened the loose collar around Sihra's neck, then activated it. A tiny ear bud broke free of the main mass and settled in the rakir's ear, making it flap with irritation a moment. Then Neska spoke in galactic.

"You understand me?"

The words were translated into rakiri in the Prilekk's ear, making it wave again in surprise. When she answered, her guttural tones were overlaid by clear and feminine galactic.

"I understand you. Now loose me!"

Neska nodded at Lily, who turned off the restraints.

"You're free, Prilekk. You will not be restrained again."

Sihra moved her arms, then confident it was true, she sat up. She was so weak she visibly trembled at the effort, but no one made a move to stop her or steady her. To do so would demonstrate that they thought she was weak- and it would be the gravest insult.

Fixing Melara with a stern look- having clearly decided through sight and smell that the asari captain was a soldier and a leader- she said, "You will return me to my Ubuut."

"That is the plan, Sihra. We want nothing more than to take you home, where you belong," Melara replied. "However, I have unfortunate news."

Sihra sniffed, then shook her head. "He is dead, isn't he?" she asked flatly.

"Yes."

She bore her teeth briefly, an odd expression of both fury and grief. After a moment, she schooled it. Her voice was low and full of vengeance as she spoke next. "Who is now Ubuut?"

Neska moved around to where she could meet the rakir's eyes. "Your niece is now Ubuuta."

"Sokka?" Sihra asked, then nodded. "She would have lead the One Hundred against the Ubuut's rivals. Good. I can serve Sokka."

Before Neska could say more, Sihra lifted her head again a bit. She was shaking worse than before, her entire body trembling with effort, but her eyes were sharp. "There is another rakir here. I smell a child."

"Yes," Melara said, then stepped aside slightly as Dae moved forward, still cradling the make-shift pouch. Seeing it, Sihra snorted in disdain.

"It is pouchless. Toss it in the rain. It is of no use."

Dae's gaze was instantly furious, and she clasped the bundle closer to her body before she looked at Mel. "I will be in the observation room."

Her voice was the deadliest calm. Without waiting for a response, she turned and left the infirmary. Mel glanced over at Neska, who nodded. She said nothing, but the gesture was clear enough. She and her staff could handle matters from here.

Mel strode after her bondmate, finding her in the small and quiet observation room nearby. As she entered, her wife did not even glance at her, knowing full well who had come in.

"Dae, you cannot be upset," Melara said gently. "Neska told you how the rakir would view that child. Her response is completely expected."

"That may be, but do _not_ tell me I cannot be upset by it," Dae answered tautly. Mel sighed, then nodded.

"You're right. I'm sorry, Dae. Of course you have the right to be upset. Even so, you knew this would happen. That baby is never going to be accepted among his people-"

"Nor _ours_, apparently," Dae replied just as rigidly as before, making Melara stiffen.

"Daenys…Goddess damn it, you are a stubborn asari if ever there was one! I feel every bit as sorry for that infant as you do. Just because I am not eager to raise it on a damned _warship_-"

Dae turned and strode toward Mel, her face set, interrupting her. Mel half recoiled as Dae unfastened the straps of the makeshift pouch.

"No. Oh, no no _no_. Don't you-"

The straps came loose, and Dae firmly placed the bundle into Melara's arms, her gaze stone. "_You_ hold him, and you _look_ at him, Melara Shepard. You look at him and _then_ you tell me it is impossible, that it is not the right thing to do."

Holding the tiny bundle awkwardly, Mel didn't look at it, but gaped at her bondmate.

"I said _look at him!_"

Mel's jaw tightened, the muscle rippling slightly, before she looked down at the bundle in her arms. Wrapped tightly in the cloth, the baby rakir was almost impossible to see, save the very end of his nose…which seemed so unbelievably tiny.

Feeling her wife's steely gaze still on her, she carefully shifted the wrap away from his face and looked at him.

He had clearly responded much faster to treatment than Sihra had. He no longer looked like a ragged doll made of sticks. His face and little arms had filled out, and while he was far from the plump look of most infants, he no longer appeared as if death might take him at any moment. The thinnest sheen of infant fur was as soft and golden as peach fuzz, and each of his ears was almost as big as the rest of his head.

Unable to resist it, Mel lightly touched that soft fuzz, as whispery as silk. When she did, the baby stirred and looked at her through heavy-lidded, milky eyes. His lips pursed a moment, as if he might cry. Instead, he yawned expansively, his tiny mouth widening like a little cave, exposing pink gums and the thin curl of a tongue no bigger than her pinky finger.

After a moment, Mel glanced up at Dae, who was watching her with an intent little smile.

"Damn you," Mel said softly, without malice, the ghost of her own smile appearing on her lips.

Dae leaned forward and gently rested her forehead against her wife's. "You really are so like your father," she said. "A great big softy deep inside."

Mel huffed and shook her head, before she sighed wearily. "This complicates…_everything_. You know that, don't you?"

"I know," Dae replied softly. "But it is a wonderful complication, and it will be worth it, Mel. I know it in my heart."

Before Melara could reply, her omni-tool suddenly beeped- the tone reserved for vital and immediate ship business. Shifting Aleu back into Dae's arms, she accessed the call.

"Shepard."

It was her XO, and as usual, Vina was all business. _{Captain, we have information on the current whereabouts of Holder Moore.}_

The two asari met each other's eyes, and Dae nodded. "Go."

Turning on her heel, Melara was already heading out of the room. "I'm on my way back, Vina. Get the _Normandy_ prepped to leave solar orbit as soon as I'm on board."

* * *

"Report!"

Mel's voice almost preceded her into the CIC, her eyes going to her XO without question as to where the turian would be standing.

"We have reliable information that Holder Moore is currently aboard a small mercenary transport, private human registration flagging it as the _King Lear_. Level six stealth capabilities, no more than twelve crew compliment, but modified shields and weapons array."

"Threat to the _Normandy_?"

"Nominal."

"Current position?"

Vina drew up a holographic image of a world wreathed in thick brown and amber clouds. A small illuminated yellow circle flashed at one point of the northern hemisphere.

"Gratudy Prime in the Havikko system, less than two hours from here at our top FTL speed. The _Lear _is hiding in the upper atmosphere. It is a heavily polluted world, abandoned by the batarians a hundred years ago. There are high levels of CO2, nitrogen, and other greenhouse gasses. They are providing an additional stealth aspect."

"A poor one if our sensors can find them."

"Our sensors didn't find them," Vina told her. "The ship's exact coordinates were provided in the information packet."

Melara looked at her. "Which contact provided this information?"

Vina didn't bat an eyelash. "The Shadow Broker, ma'am."

"She was _not_ one of my authorized contacts. Who pinged her?"

"No one. She simply messaged us on secure channels and provided the information."

"Out of the goodness of her damned heart?" Mel asked, furious. "Get me on the line with her. _Right now."_

Private Laws, standing at the communications station, immediately did so, passing the connection to Melara's main console. The moment it was answered, Melara drew the feed forward to dominate her display. "What the hell are you up to?"

_{No hello? No, 'thank you for the intel regarding the vicious slaver I've been chasing for nearly a year now?'}_

"And I am supposed to just believe you sent that information to my ship free of cost? How do I know that Moore is on that vessel, or that that vessel is even where you _claim_ it is? Our sensors cannot penetrate both its inbuilt stealth systems and the masking of that particular atmosphere. We'd have no way to verify your information even _if_ we were in orbit around that damned planet right now. We'd have to go in blind and watch for them out of a viewport!"

_{The information is genuine-}_

"And I just take your word for it? _Your_ word? How stupid do you think I am?"

_{I am well aware of your feelings toward me, Melara. This animosity you have is entirely one sided. I wish you no ill or harm. I had hoped by providing this information that it would be seen as a gesture of good will on my part-}_

"You don't know what good will even _means_. What do you want? What's the 'catch', Athena?"

_{In exchange for handing you Moore- and I do believe he has a full cargo of freshly captured salarian colonists on board- I was hoping for a single favor.}_

"What favor?"

_{That the next time you and I meet face to face, you refrain from trying to shoot me in the face or tear me apart with biotics, and instead hear me out like a rational adult.}_

"That's all?"

_{That is all.}_

"And if I refuse?"

_{You will still find Moore at those coordinates…at least for the next six hours or so. You will have him, and I will have nothing. You win either way, Melara. As I said, I hold no animosity toward you. If you agree to my terms we have a bargain. If not, you have the free gift of Holder Moore…and I have nothing.}_

"Nothing save no excuse _not_ to kill you on sight or send assassins after you, ma'am," Vina said to Melara in a low voice.

_{Was that Vina? I see she's still as grumpy as ever. That stick up her ass must really chafe.}_

Vina and Melara both scowled in sync.

_{Look, take it or leave it, Melara. Moore is yours if you want him. If I hear on my feeds that he has been captured and brought to justice, then I will assume we have a deal and you will hear me out on our next meeting…whenever that may come about. Keeping your half of the bargain is entirely up to you. Broker out.}_

"Permission to shoot the bitch on sight, Captain?" Vina asked.

"I'll consider it," Melara replied, though she would of course allow no such thing. It wasn't so much that she cared if her XO shot Athena, as she was far more concerned as to what Athena would do to her XO. As the daughter of the genetically engineered and artificially grown Eír- the most dangerous and powerful biotic extant- Athena was more than capable of tearing any enemy apart on a molecular level, if necessary.

_She's right. She wouldn't bother trying to lure me into a trap- if she wanted me dead she'd come and kill me herself. She could also arrange a meeting with me at her convenience, and I wouldn't necessarily have to agree to it. She has more resources at her fingertips than I could even count. Like it or not, this is probably the best and most respectful way she has to ensure I at least listen of my own free will, as opposed to having me kidnapped and strapped to a table._

That made her wonder what it was that Athena wanted to say to her. Everything they'd had to say to each other had been said decades ago.

She straightened, deciding. "Set course for those coordinates. I want top FTL and full stealth- don't let them see we're coming. Laws. Message the research base and the Citadel, let them know where we are heading and that we have Moore on our scope."

In the end, it all came down to one thing. Melara could not in good conscious let Moore escape- especially if he truly did have a cargo full of freshly kidnapped salarians he most likely intended to be made into Grease. She didn't believe that Athena was lying, but even if she _was_, she still had to take the chance.

Moore _had_ to be stopped. He had to pay for what he'd done and the endless lives he'd destroyed.

* * *

"Hey, let me out. Let me out of here, ok? Do you have any idea who I am? What family I come from? You can't do this to me! You have to-"

There was the whip of a heavy steel baton through air, then a dry and disconcerting crack as it collided into both bars and the fingers grasping them. The salarian screamed in pain, yanking his wounded hand back into the tiny cell. Without a stride lost, the wielder continued on the way through the cargo hold, the begging, threatening, and whimpering that had filled the air a moment ago dying down in the wake of the crack of those broken fingers.

Iron cages, each about four feet high and five deep, stacked five tall in the cargo hold. The iron bars were incredibly primitive when compared to energy and biotic barriers, but he preferred them. These beasts were primitive, after all. They deserved to be treated as such.

He continued to count as he walked, ending on seventeen. The number did little to ease his mood. Seventeen salarians, worth about a hundred and fifty million credits each in Grease, once they were processed. Small consolation for losing an entire ship and a unique specimen that would have fetched ten times that amount- once he'd finally broken her. Climbing the ladder out of the lower cargo hold, he emerged into the much cleaner upper hold, where several of his crew were working. Even though they were hiding in the masking atmosphere of Gratudy Prime, there was still work to be done. The hiding was necessary, at least until the heat was off. The salarians, frog-men though they were, had formidable ships and a distinct dislike of their citizens being kidnapped off a colony, gutted alive, and their organs boiled and strained to be turned into psychedelic drugs.

_Not to mention that cunt asari is still on the war path. _It would be a great shame if he had to kill her. He'd much rather have her in one of his cells…his to do with as he pleased.

He grinned at the thought. Breaking her and carving her into a thousand little pieces over weeks' worth of time would just about make up for his recent losses.

Down in the prisoner bay, the salarian with the broken fingers cradled them to his chest and whimpered, ignoring the puddle of sick he'd left beside himself. The pain that had raged through his arm was more vicious than anything he'd ever felt before, and he'd vomited from it before he realized he was going to. In his misery he completely missed the pair of luminescent eyes that drew near to the bars, lowering as the owner of them crouched to peer within.

The girl was a quarian, dressed in an odd set of armor that looked almost like a thick layer of oil that had been painted on and then solidified somehow. In stark contrast to the black of the armor, her blonde hair looked nearly white, only irregularly showing deeper shades of honey. She'd shaved it on one side down to skin. How long she'd crouched there silently watching him, the salarian couldn't say. As the pain died down in his hand from blazing agony to a heavy, red throb, he focused on her.

"Please, let me out," he said thickly. "My family is rich, very important. I'll do anything. They can give you anything you want. Just let me out."

She looked somewhat concerned, and he could see her weighing the idea behind her eyes. When she looked around and gestured carefully for him to come forward, he felt his heart leap with hope. Edging forward eagerly, he started to whisper.

"I always liked quarians. You're so smart and sensible. You're a sweet girl, I can tell. Please, I know you can help me."

"Shh, keep it down," she said with another furtive glance around herself. In the nearby cells, other salarians had started to creep close, trying to listen. She looked back at him and gestured at his hand. "He broke your fingers?"

"Yes," he said shakily. "It hurts very badly."

"Let me see. Maybe I can help."

Tentatively, he raised his hand, edging it toward the bars and then through them. She kindly and carefully grasped his wrist, as if cradling a wounded bird, and regarded the bent and smashed digits.

She hissed through her teeth in sympathy, then nodded. "I think I can help."

"Can you?" he asked hopefully. She gave him a tender smile, then looked back at his fingers.

"They need to be set," she said, then suddenly clamped on his wrist with a grip of steel. Grabbing one of the broken fingers, she violently wrenched it back into place, and then continued to wrench, twisting it the other way. The salarian bellowed in agony, immediately yanking back on his hand, trying to free it from her grip.

"Now, now, we're not _done_," she said gleefully, taking the next and doing the same, craning it viciously around until he heard it snap yet a second time. He screamed, beating frantically at the bars with his good hand, trying to tear away from her. She grabbed his middle finger and bent it backward toward his wrist, making sure the broken bones were grinding against each other.

"You feel that, froggy?" she asked, her voice a growl between her teeth. "Is _that_ the help you wanted?"

"_Letmegoletmegostopstopstop!"_ Tears were streaming down his face as he sobbed and begged and continued to try and yank away. She waited until he threw his weight back again, then suddenly released him. He fell back hard enough to crack his head on the bars behind him. Curling into a ball he sobbed, holding his hand tucked in safely. With a twist of her mouth, the quarian got to her feet, her luminescent eyes fixed on him a moment before she turned and walked up the bay toward the ladder.

As she emerged into the main bay, Holder zeroed in on her and strode her way, scowling. "Red. Finally. You were supposed to be up here ten minutes ago."

"Didn't realize I was on _your _schedule, Moore," she said with a glare, as half a dozen more quarians emerged from the lower deck, all dressed in the same odd armor as she wore.

"You're on my schedule when your recent acquisitions remind me of _garbage_ and _shit_." He grabbed a case off a nearby hover cart and tossed it at her feet. "You wanna tell me what this trash is?"

"You pay us to find rare and valuable objects, Moore. Those are rare and valuable objects."

"Those are _bullshit_ and you know it! Asari graken silk cloth? A krogan bingho statuette? The fuck you think I need these for?"

He kicked the box closer to her, then reached in his pouch, removing a small flat black rectangle. He waved it at her. "This. _This_ is what I want, bitch! More of this useful alien tech, not fucking _chatchkies_ from some frog's fucking mantle!"

"Then perhaps being a bit more succinct and explicit in what you seek would be helpful," she said coolly. "Perhaps instead of saying 'Red, find me some rare and valuable alien shit and I'll pay you,' you should say, 'this is the specific alien shit I'm looking for.' Save frowns all around, don't you think?"

"You listen to me, _quarian_." He stepped closer, thrusting a finger in between them, and completely ignoring the warning clicks of guns as her silent companions primed their weapons and aimed them at his face. "You-"

"You're a fucking blowhard, Moore, you know that? Did Shepard piss in your cereal again? You look about ready to pop a vein. Relax, would you? Relax and look at the pretty."

A hiss of metal came from her waist as she lifted a shimmering chain in front of his eyes. About an inch in width and less than a centimeter thick, the chain was made of interlocking links of flat metal and shimmered as she gave it a little wiggle.

His eyes widened and he lowered his hand, staring at it. "Where did you find that, you beauty?" he asked.

"Now I'm a beauty and not a bitch, hmm?" she asked. "Never you mind where I found this. I sent that box of useless junk because word is the Broker has been monitoring my shipments. I brought this to you personally to ensure it landed in your hands. Now say thank you."

"How much?"

"I didn't say that, I asked you to say 'thank you'. Then I'll say 'five hundred million credits' and you'll say 'done', and then we'll both leave happy and feeling good about ourselves."

Moore grinned. "Thank you."

"You see? I feel good about myself already. Pass the credits into my accounts, then you get this pretty shiny, and I can be on my w-"

The deck below them suddenly shook, rumbling ominously. Red immediately drew back, dropping the chain back into the compartment at her waist and sealing it, even as she drew her gun. Holder spun on his heel.

"The _fuck_ was that?"

One of his men slammed in the bay door, panting and wide eyed. "We're under attack!"

"Attack? What the fuck...by _who?_"

"It's the _Normandy_," the man said, breathless. "I don't know how they found us but…it's the _Normandy._"


	7. Chapter 7

"Return signal, we have a direct hit across the bow," Joker reported as Melara looked up from her displays.

"So the ship _is_ there," Vina said, under her breath but loud enough that her captain could hear it.

"Continue fire, focus on disabling that ship's engines and weapon's system. Disable, do _not_ destroy. If our intel is correct there are innocent salarians on board that vessel, and we want the slavers prisoners, not corpses. Vina, move us in closer and keep the heat up. Joker, see if you can't access their airlock systems. I'm taking in a boarding team. Laws, you're with me. Nevil, Rohweder, suit up and meet me in the shuttle bay."

Though her team never dawdled, Melara was always inevitably first aboard the shuttle. The cockpit was empty, of course- while the shuttle could be manually flown in cases of long-range missions or emergencies, so long as they stayed within a system's length of the _Normandy_, Joker remotely piloted the shuttle as well as the frigate. Even in full battle, his systems were capable of directing several smaller ships in concert with the _Normandy_ as well as coordinate weapons, shields, and automatic repair protocols.

Moments after she stepped aboard Laws jumped in, followed quickly by Nevil and Rohweder, the latter hitting the control to close the shuttle door.

"We're going to attach to their flank airlock and board. We're going in hot but shoot to wound if at all possible- I want Moore _alive_. We have an unknown number of salarian colonists on board. Once we secure the ship, we'll shuttle them over to the _Normandy_ for medical treatment and take Moore and his men to the brig."

As the shuttle started to lift off Joker's voice filled the air. "Ma'am, we have a secondary ship already attached to the _Lear_ at the flank airlock."

"Specs?"

"Small, short-range transport- probably only a ground-based ferry on full automation. No identifying marks or signal flag. I will direct the shuttle to the secondary aft airlock on the port side."

"Do it."

"Short-range transport suggests a base, ship, or colony on the planet's surface," Rohweder said. "We could be facing AA guns from the surface capable of taking out the _Normandy_."

"This close of a range they can't fire without risking taking out the _Lear_ as well. If Moore has a slaver base down there they'd never risk killing their own boss," Nevil said. Melara's eyes were thoughtful, however, and she shook her head.

"Moore has never used bases. He prefers to stay mobile, to keep his stock mobile. If he had somewhere to land on the surface he would not be lurking in the upper atmosphere. No- this feels more like he's meeting someone, making an exchange. If he is, they are far more likely to take the _Lear_ out as well as the _Normandy_ in order to cut their losses. Joker-"

"Already monitoring any sudden energy emission that would accompany an AA gun from the surface, or an activating ship engine," he replied. "So far we're clear."

"Then keep monitoring and keep on mission. Any sign of hostile activity from the surface, take it out."

"Acknowledged. I have accessed the _Lear_'s secondary systems and will connect you to the aft airlock in nine seconds. I should have access to primary systems in the next three minutes."

As the shuttle joined the airlock and locked into place, the group drew their weapons. Mel's eyes narrowed with intent.

"Let's go get this bastard."

* * *

As Moore rushed off to the helm, bellowing orders and demanding to know which incompetent was responsible for the _Normandy_ finding them, the ship shuddered again. Warning klaxons were filling the air, almost drowning out the voice of the ship's VI reporting damage to shields and engines. Red calmly turned toward her team, one of whom was consulting his omni-tool.

"Options?" she asked.

"There are no indications they've spotted the _Infinity_. Their AI is hacking in to the _Lear_'s secondary systems."

"They'll want Moore alive, and they won't risk killing those frogs down in the hold. Which means sending a boarding party."

"They're in the secondary systems. They have control over the airlocks."

Red smiled an exasperated little smile. "So much for our ferry. Cargo door?"

"Still clear."

" Then it looks like we take the fun way down. Vilas."

"On it."

He started working rapidly on his omni-tool as Red and the rest of the team put their weapons away. Moore charged back into the cargo hold with a rifle in his hand, waving it frantically and barking at his men. He zeroed in on Red and the quarians.

"What are you doing? Get your guns out! That bitch is coming on board!"

"You're going to have to pay me a hell of a lot more to defend your ship and your sad little cargo, Moore," Red laughed.

"They've got the airlocks blocked out! You can't get to your pitiful little ship!" He glared. "What are you gonna do, _surrender_ like a pissant coward?"

"No. We're going to leave." She touched her collar. Her helmet folded out of its small pack above her shoulders, expanding in sections over her head and locking down. It completely covered her features, leaving only two round yellow eye lights staring back at him. As her team did the same, Moore seemed to swell with frantic rage, his face deepening from red to purple, veins standing out.

"_You're insane!_ We're in the upper goddamn atmosphere! You can't just _leave!_ Get your goddamn weapons out and _fight!_"

"I suggest you hold on to something," Red said calmly, as Vilas finished his work. Behind them, the warning alarm for the cargo door began to flash, a low vibration shaking the deck. Moore blanched, then turned and grabbed onto an equipment bank as the doors parted and began to open. Though it wasn't a vacuum outside, the pressure differential was more than enough for a violent, if brief, decompression. One of his men, not as quick as the others, didn't manage to grab an anchor in time and went tumbling out, uttering a single yell of surprise before he vanished into wind and bellowing brown clouds of pollution.

The decompression over, only a sharp and stiff foul-smelling wind rattling through the bay now from outside, Moore released his hold as the quarians headed across the deck toward the open door, saved from the initial blast by the maglocks in their boots.

"_GET BACK HERE YOU BITCH!"_ He shouted after her as her team started casually leaping off the end of the bay door into open air. _"YOU GET BACK HERE AND FIGHT!"_

She was rather amazed at this altitude that he had the air to be bellowing. There was little oxygen in the atmosphere any more to begin with, and spending longer than ten minutes on the surface required a rebreather or oxygen pack in order to stay alive and well. At the _Lear's_ current altitude, with the bay's entire atmosphere lost when the doors were open, he should have been gasping and wheezing and stumbling toward a mask or rebreather of his own.

_Perhaps he is just drawing on the hot air deep inside,_ the quarian merc thought with amusement.

Red was the last one. She stopped on the edge of the door, and unable to resist, turned back to face Moore. Lifting a hand, she snapped off a sharp and sarcastic human salute, before spreading her arms wide. Despite the hard wind, she fell backward into open air with an odd grace.

In seconds, Red was falling backward through the thick clouds of foul atmosphere, the open bay of the _Lear_ visible only for a moment or two before it was obscured from sight. She was swathed in a cocoon of tans and browns, grays and blacks, soft and nebulous and ever-shifting around her. After a long moment she rolled, tucking her arms in close to her sides and picking up speed. Her HUD showed her rapidly dropping altitude. She wouldn't even see the ground until she was less than a hundred feet from it, but that didn't matter- her infrared picked up every distant crack, crag, hill and boulder in the distance beneath her. She could also see the forms of her team still falling beneath her, the distant shape of the _Infinity_ parked in the shadow of a low mountain. The first ones to have leapt were already activating their jump suits' flight systems.

She had just reached about fifteen hundred feet when something hot and bright lanced through the air, carving through the clouds and flaring with such intensity her infrared blazed a brilliant white. In a reaction of pure reflex and instinct, she recoiled from the flash, letting out a gritting cry as her eyes ached from the intensity. The motion threw off her controlled plummet and she began to tumble, eyes flooding with tears of pain. Her entire vision was nothing but a brilliant after image. She couldn't see her HUD.

Blinking frantically in an attempt to clear them, she started to regain sight only for it to light up again in a bright flash. This time, the source was behind her and not in front, so the flash wasn't as intense or painful, but it was still enough to blind her again. She was still falling out of control, with no way to tell which direction was up or down.

Shaking her head and desperately trying to clear her eyes, the after-image finally started to fade, her HUD swimming back into focus.

She was on her side, the ground now only four hundred feet away, and she was heading directly toward a large rock formation. Twisting desperately, she got into a controlled fall again, activating the control for the jump suit.

With a flash of orange and yellow and an instant slowing of her plummet, the jump suit's flash fabricated glider wings flared out wide along her shoulders and sides, catching the air. She gripped the wing controls just in time to bank and avoid smashing into a large rock formation. Another crag loomed up as she cleared the first, and she frantically banked the other way. Tucking up her feet, she 'caught' the crag with the soles of her boots and pushed herself away from it.

The crags were just the start. She was half gliding, half falling into a narrow canyon, and if it got much narrower it could interfere with and even break the wings of her jump suit. If she was still moving too fast and was too high up when that happened, she was dead.

Banking again frantically, she missed just that eventuality by only a hair's breadth, feeling the tip of one wing scrape momentarily against rock. She angled them sharply, catching the air and slowing her speed, then had to draw them in a bit as the canyon sharply closed around her, rocks and broken ledges seeming to reach out specifically to foul her up.

Finally she had to chance it. Dropping the wings, which separated from the suit and tumbled away, she fell the last twenty feet. As her boots struck rock she tucked and rolled, letting her jump suit absorb the impact. A boulder caught her just over the shoulder and she slammed to a halt with a gasp of breath. Still and silent, she lay there against it for a long moment, taking stock. Then she climbed to her feet and glared upward toward the ugly sky.

Those flashes had been one of the ships firing at her and her team. The _Normandy_ was unlikely to have done so-they would concentrate on taking the _Lear _and worry about deserters later. Moore, however- it would be just like him to use his last moments of weapons control to try and take her out, fueled by his anger at her 'abandonment'.

Uninjured save some heavy bruising from her landing, she quickly took stock of the canyon she was in, even as she touched her com.

"Vilas, report."

The canyon was uneven. It would take a few minutes to climb to level ground again but it was doable. However, only silence was on her com.

"Vilas. Answer."

Nothing.

"Grov, Marti, Lumy, report!"

Nothing. Her com was functional according to her HUD. Glowering, she set on her way out of the canyon, climbing up the ragged rocks to level ground. She was only about a hundred meters from their powered down ship. If the team were still alive, they would rendezvous there.

* * *

Moore grunted around his bloody lips, his nose swollen and reducing his breath to a thick, wet-sounding snore. He managed to spit another curse in a foam of blood and spit as he struggled to roll over and push himself up into a sit- not easy to do with bind cuffs on. Managing it, he glared blackly as the barrier over the brig cell was activated.

"You think you've won some kind of victory, you fucking squid? I have contacts. You turn me over to the Citadel and I'll be walking a free man in _two days_."

"You wasted your last two shots trying to take out the jump suits that bailed from your cargo hold," Melara said calmly. "Deserting crew? Someone must have really pissed you off."

"No crew of mine," he said with a thick snarl, before snorting up a mouthful of blood and snot, and spitting it on the brig floor. "My boys are _loyal_."

"Four of your boys are already pissing themselves with eagerness to spill everything they know about you and your entire ring, _just_ to make their sentences lighter," she said. "Who were the deserters, then, if no crew of yours?"

He glared, and she shrugged. "I'll find out anyway. My XO has a full team heading to the surface right now. We're going to find your 'evacuees' with or without your help. I'm just curious."

"Go fuck yourself."

She lifted a brow, then casually touched the control of the barrier again, shutting it off. Moving over, she crouched in front of him. He hawked again, but before he could spit she clamped her hand down over his mouth and gripped his face hard. "Listen to me _closely_, Moore," she said in a dangerous voice. "If I turn you over to the Citadel for charges you are likely going to make a very strong exception in the Council's stance against the death penalty. You've kidnapped and killed salarian citizens to make illegal narcotics. You've broken sanction on a Council protected world. You've taken members of nearly every Council species from their homes, their beds- beaten and tortured them, violated them, and sold them as if they were nothing but animals. I feel only sheer and utter joy that you will waste away in the worst hell hole of a prison they can discover, before they put a legal and very well deserved bullet between your eyes. However, if you are _anything_ but the very spitting image of a civil man and a model citizen from this moment until you are out of my custody, I'm going to forgo _all_ of that. No trial, no prison, no relatively painless execution. Oh no. Instead, you know what I'll do?"

He didn't move, only continued to glare. Melara barely paused, not expecting any kind of response.

"I'm going to keep you in this lovely little cell until such time as I can stand face to face with the new Ubuuta of Nakira- her and her One Hundred, _and_ her beloved Aunt Sihra- fully recovered and regained of her strength. I'm going to put you in front of all those very _angry_ and toothsome rakir, and I'm going to explain to the Ubuuta how you are the one who has been kidnapping her people, how you are the one that took her aunt, not only torturing her but directly causing the murder of her Ubuut and leading to a battle that decimated their fertile male population down to extinction levels. Then…I'm going to leave you to her kind graces."

As she spoke his expression didn't change, but she could see his face begin to pale, fear creeping in unwanted behind his eyes.

She let that sink in a moment. "I'm going to drop my hand now, and you are going to answer each and every question I pose to you, courteously and thoroughly. Anything less, and your skin is destined to be tanned and hanged in the Kodra Hall for every rakir to see."

He made no motion, and she removed her hand. "Now. Who were the men who left your ship in jump suits?"

His jaw tightened a moment, before he spoke. "Group of quarian mercs. Their leader is a woman named Thiredra…she goes by Red."

"She have a last name?"

"I'm sure she did at one time, but she ditched it. It's just Red."

"And why were Red and her men on your ship?"

He glanced aside, clearly furious to be answering but fearful enough of the consequences if he didn't. "I pay her to bring me things."

"Things?" she asked. "Slaves?"

"No. Red don't traffic in slaves. She gets…items. Rare art, valuables, really hard to find shit-"

"Like this?"

Mel reached into her side pouch and drew out the flat, black square she'd taken off of Moore after she'd knocked him senseless, while Laws was cuffing him. He glared at the sight of it, lifting his chin.

"Yeah."

"What is this? Where did she get it?"

"Dunno where she got it. She doesn't tell me her sources. She brought that to me about a year ago. You hold it right and it neutralizes energy fields and blocks scanning equipment."

"You know nothing more than that?"

"Not a damned thing. I don't know where it's from or where she got it."

"This is how you were slipping past the Nakira security and taking the rakir?"

"Yes."

"Has she brought you any more of this tech?"

He snorted in frustration, before speaking through clenched jaws. "No. I asked her too, told her I'd pay her top dollar. Didn't hear back from her until four days ago. She said she had something new and was sending it along."

"And what was it?"

"Box of junk. Then she asks for a rendezvous here to pick up her payment. I let her on and she tells me that she sent the box as a decoy, that the Broker was monitoring her shipments for some goddamned reason or another."

"The Shadow Broker?"

His look bespoke an insult right on the tip of his tongue, but with uncharacteristic wisdom, he did not speak it. "Yeah. Then she showed me something new she'd picked up."

"What was it?"

"No fucking clue. I barely got a look at it before you hit my ship. Bitch tucked it away and then bailed."

"So she has it now. And you have no idea what it does."

"Not the foggiest idea." Here he grinned. "You might wanna warn your XO before she tries to fence Red in. For all I know, that thing can put a hole in a goddamn planet. I'd hate to see your crew turned into a fine mist, you know? That'd just be the _worst._"


	8. Chapter 8

Irie glanced up from a plate of half eaten food, jarred from her thoughts as a figure appeared at the door of the helm. Gerty looked at her kindly a moment, then said, "We're only about four hours out from the Citadel. Scope is clear."

"Thank you," she replied, then looked back at her supper. It had long since gone cold, and she'd spent the last half hour or so doing nothing but stirring it around.

The food itself wasn't the problem. Though she'd never had human curry before, it was actually rather delightful, and reminded her a lot of Thessian food- simply with more red meat and less fish. The heat of the spices was comparable to some of the dishes she had grown up with-both her parents rather fond of hot food that tended to set your mouth on fire.

Despite rather liking the food, her appetite over the last couple of days had been little to nonexistent. There was not much to occupy her mind on the tiny merchant ship, leaving her to dwell on her discovery and all that it may mean. Still, it was also not the existence of new Reapers that had put her off this particular meal.

She had not checked her omni-tool since coming aboard. Of all those who could perhaps discover the news of the Reapers and use it to drive the galaxy into a state of panic, she feared Athena's getting hold of it the most. Being the daughter of the former Broker, Irie well knew the capabilities of the Broker's resources even centuries ago- Athena would only have improved upon them. So much as powering on her omni-tool could put its data at risk, or at least give away her position. She could not do so until she was standing in the highly shielded and masked Council chambers.

The Council Chambers were considered the most secure room in the galaxy. Athena might have some surveillance even in places such as Alliance headquarters and Omega's top echelons, but even _she_ could not eavesdrop or steal data from the Council Chambers themselves. Liara, the former Broker, had seen to that, along with a team of the most qualified and vetted quarian technicians in existence.

That meant that she had no idea yet if her assistant had sent her that final 'yes' or 'no', regarding the Reapers…but that was not what was plaguing her.

Without her omni-tool, and in the stress of the situation, she had completely lost track of date and time. Halfway through her meal, she'd suddenly remembered that she had meant to call her mother the same evening that she had run the final test on the megascope…and _why_.

"Are you ok?"

She blinked out of her thoughts again as she looked at Gerty. He had stepped down into the mess and was leaning on the edge of the tiny table. She hadn't even noticed him move.

"I…no, not really," she said.

"Anything I can do?"

"No, I just…not…" She shook her head, setting her fork down as tears flooded her eyes, her brows wrinkling. "I am just a horrible daughter."

"What? Why would you say that?" Concerned by her emotion, he crouched down beside her, looking at her intently. She shook her head, picking up her napkin and wiping self-consciously at her eyes. It did no good. The dam had broken, and more tears just replaced the ones she mopped away.

"The day that I left the research base was the anniversary of my father's passing," she said, trying to keep her voice even. "Every year since she died, our family has gotten together- in person or at least via a vid-call- to remember her…"

"And you missed it," he said softly. "Because of what you found."

"How could I forget? No matter what was happening, how could I possibly have forgotten something so important? To betray my father's memory, to dismiss my mother's grief-"

"Hey now, hey...that's _not_ what happened. You're only hu-…asari, sorry. You're only asari. Anyone would be rocked by what you found- hell, _I'm_ still trying to get over the shock and think straight, and I didn't even _see_ it, ay? Losing track because of it is understandable, and it doesn't mean you've betrayed your father's memory or dismissed your mother's grief at all."

"I just…I feel horrible. I switched off my omni-tool so it could not be hacked or tracked. The moment I did not join in that call, my family would have been trying to reach me. They will be near to frantic by now."

"They'd have called the research base, right? Surely your assistant would have told them-"

"She would tell them I was not available to talk. Revealing even to _them_ I had left the research base might draw suspicion and the scrutinizing eyes of others who may be monitoring. Over the Alliance's highly encrypted communication protocols the risk is probably minimal, but I told her not to chance it anyway. I did not remember the day and did not consider my family attempting to reach me with fervor. By now, Melara has likely tried to reach my omni-tool at least a dozen times and is probably preparing the _Normandy_ to go to the research base herself to make sure I am well. Mama will have doubled that number and be making arrangements to do so herself despite her condition making it unwise-"

"Your mother is sick?"

"What? Oh, n-no, she is expecting."

"_Expect…?_ Oh."

She wiped at her eyes again, wringing the napkin a bit. "Interstellar travel in her condition is not recommended, not so close to potential labor- but she will do it if she does not reach me soon. Not to mention _Lily._"

"Lily?"

"My daughter. She is the chief medical officer on the _Normandy_."

"I would never have guessed you had a grown daughter," he said. His dark eyes searched her face, then he nodded. "Well, we're only a few hours away from the Citadel now. When we dock you can send her and your sister and mother a quick message, let them know that you're all right."

"I cannot, not until I deliver this news to the Council. Even powering my omni-tool would make the data vulnerable to sophisticated hackers-"

"Is there a reason sophisticated hackers would even care about your omni-tool right now?"

"The potential that something has leaked from the research base is always there- even if the intel specifies nothing more than _something_ is going on. That might pique the interest of someone such as the Shadow Broker just enough to go poking around for more. That aside, I am the daughter of the most famous person to have ever lived in this galaxy. That alone will always bring the risk of someone attempting to monitor me and my movements for various reasons. I cannot risk it."

"Then don't," he said. "We'll use _my_ omni-tool. It's got no sensitive data about the Reapers on it, and doesn't have your flag ident to draw attention. If it's tracked, we'll be safe on the Citadel anyway and not floating here open in space. You use it to send your family a quick message and reassure them you'll call them back as soon as you can. At least reassure them long enough to stop them from heading to your base to look for you if they haven't already."

"I…" She paused, then wiped her eyes again and nodded. "I think that will work. Thank you, Gerty. That is very kind of you."

He smiled, then lay a hand gently on her arm. "And you are not a horrible daughter. I think if your father were around, she'd more than understand."

Irie ducked her head a bit, then nodded. "Thank you," she said again, softer than before. He nodded and rose, heading back up to the helm. As soon as he'd gone, she moved her plate aside and covered her face, emotionally and physically exhausted.

* * *

Red moved at as fast a trot as she could manage on the uneven ground, considering the stiff wind and limited visibility. Though her helmet infrared was still working, it relied on line of sight, and the landscape made for plenty of obstacles to her sight. She finally climbed onto a flat plateau in view of the low mountain, in whose shadow they had parked the _Infinity_…and jolted to a halt in shock.

One of the two shots the _Lear_ had taken at them- either by accident or design- had struck the ridge of that mountain. The impact loosened half the hillside, sending millions of tons of rock and dirt in a collapse directly onto the ship. She could see the incredible mound of debris, almost half as tall as the mountain itself had been, and only a few twists of collapsed wreckage to show her ship was completely destroyed, crushed in the cavalcade.

They had completely powered down the vessel to lessen the chances of anyone locating it. No power meant no active shielding or AI computer response. The rock had crushed the hull without anything to stop it.

A nauseous ball of rage and disbelief growing in her gut accompanied her as she crossed the plateau closer to the ruin. Her hands were shaking as she drew near to it, fisted at her sides.

_If Shepard doesn't kill Moore…_I _am going to_.

None of her people were there. Another half hour of scans and casting about and she discovered the impact crater of the second weapon shot, half a mile away. The scorched remains of a severed arm here and a foot there showed that this bolt had done its work. At least three of her men were torn apart by it, if the number of body parts could be reckoned. There was no sign of two of the remaining three, and likely they had been completely incinerated in the heart of the beam.

Vilas' body she found another fifty yards on, broken and twisted on the ground, one shattered glide suit wing nearby. His fate was also obvious- like her, he hadn't been directly struck by the weapon, but instead he'd been sent out of control. Unlike her, he had been unable to recover himself in time before he hit the ground.

Her ship, gone. Her team, dead.

_No. Death is too _good_ for Moore._

A warning chime suddenly sounded in her ear, and she refocused from the body at her feet to her HUD. It showed no fewer than six figures were only a hundred yards distant and closing at a cautious but steady clip.

She had no doubts as to who they were, and immediately realized the situation she was in. She had two weapons against an armed squad under the command of a Spectre. She had no ship for escape, no supplies, and no living crew. The world was barren and lifeless, with no sources of food or water. Even if she could elude the group coming her way and hide- highly unlikely- once they left she'd be pretty much completely stranded, doomed to die in a matter of days as dehydration took hold.

Were she able to get a signal off world, there was no one she knew who would simply come and rescue her- they would all demand payment. Even if she gave them the artifact she'd found as payment, it would still take the nearest one several days to reach her. She'd be long dead when they arrived.

_Even so, they might just take the artifact and kill me or turn me over anyway. _

Gritting her teeth, she unshipped her rifle, removing its thermal clip and then tossing both to the ground a few feet away. Doing the same with her pistol, she lowered down to her knees and put her hands on her head. Much as she hated surrendering, at least with the Spectre she knew she'd be turned into authorities instead of murdered. Jail left options for escape, and at any rate was far better than dying of thirst.

A few moments later the armed forms coalesced out of the wind and gloom, their omni-lights and weapons fixed firmly on her. As they approached, the one in the lead kicked her rifle aside and even further away, her own rifle aimed firmly at Red's helmeted forehead.

Though her own face couldn't be seen through the extended jump suit helmet, the others were wearing military issue helmets with full face plates. Red was a bit surprised to see it was a turian female before her and not Shepard.

"Identify," the turian demanded as one of the others covered Vilas, then crouched to examine him.

"Red," she said through gritted teeth.

"Last name? Point of origin?"

"It's just Red," she spat back.

"Well, _Red_, you are under arrest pending potential charges of abetting kidnapping and slavery."

Though the turian could not see it, the look in Red's eyes was as withering as her tone. "Yes, I figured. That would be why I am on my knees with my hands on my head."

The turian's eyes narrowed just a fraction. "Are you carrying any additional weapons or hazards on your person?"

"You're free to look, aren't you?"

The turian lowered her rifle and shipped it, Red still covered by at least two others. With decidedly ungentle motions, she grabbed Red's wrist and swung it around, gripping the same arm with her other hand and using her leverage to yank the quarian merc up to her feet. In moments, she had her cuffed and had removed the knife she'd found in Red's boot. Suddenly the turian paused, tilting her head a bit, clearly listening to a voice not audible outside her helmet.

"Understood," she said, then looked back at Red. "The captain tells me you are carrying an unknown device that may be dangerous."

"Your captain would have heard that from Moore," she said. "There is a compartment on my waist, left side."

Feeling out the hidden compartment, the turian opened it and carefully drew out the item that Red had earlier displayed to Moore, then held it out for one of the others to scan.

"No energy signatures, no radiation of any kind. It is made of a material that is not registering but it does not appear to be any kind of weapon. Seems benign enough."

The turian balled it up and slid it into her own pouch, fixing Red with another look. "Where is your ship?"

"Under about fifty million tons of rock and debris, over there," she said, tilting her head to indicate direction. "And let me spare you the questions. My crew is all dead, I'm not a slaver, I was there to sell Moore that artifact. I have nothing to do with his slaving racket and I don't give two pisses in a stiff wind for what happens to him. I have nothing else on me and I don't intend to resist. Now can you kindly take me off to a cell and let me get to considering with deep heart-felt reflection on where my life went wrong, finally discover if I was ever _really_ loved as a child and form a conclusion as to whether or not that might explain my naughty, naughty, criminal ways- so I can get on with my life and you can too?"

Her flippancy clearly did not make the turian happy, but it did result in her not saying anything further, which was just fine with Red. The yank on her arm was expectedly rough as she was escorted away from the impact site, doubtlessly toward a shuttle that would take her off this godforsaken rock.

* * *

"The shuttle is locked back on board. The Lear is secure and the beacon for pick up is active," Joker said as Melara stopped behind his helm chair.

"Good. Put us on course for the Citadel. Have C-Sec meet us on dock to take custody of our prisoners, and inform the Council I would like to speak with them regarding the situation on Nakira. Now that we know Sihra is going to survive I can add my case to Neska's for uplifting them."

"Yes ma'am. ETA to the Citadel nine hours."

As Melara turned to walk back toward the CIC she spotted Vina coming her way.

"Prisoner secure in the brig?"

"Yes. We confiscated her jump suit and omni-tool. She was correct- her ship was destroyed under a rock slide and the rest of her team were dead. I have Joker doing a background search on her, see if he can find any more outstanding warrants or ties to Moore or his slaving ring."

"And the artifact he said she was carrying?"

Vina opened a pouch at her waist and drew it out. "Here. We scanned it and it does not seem to be any kind of weapon or danger-"

As Melara's eyes affixed to it, she felt every muscle in her body suddenly knot, her eyes widening and her breath catching short as she realized what she was seeing. Reaching out, she took it from her XO.

"On the contrary, Vina…this is extremely dangerous and potentially one of the most catastrophic weapons ever devised."

"Ma'am?"

"This is a Cinch," Melara said. "A type of biotic battery. An identical device detonated by my father is what caused the Anadius black hole. Did she tell you where she got it? Is this the only piece?"

"She did not reveal how she got it, and we found nothing else on her person."

"It does not appear to be charged. My mother said it took on a distinct blue glow along the links of the chain when it was- these ones are dark. It requires a control cube to be activated or discharged. You're sure she had nothing like that on her?"

"I am positive."

"Without a charge the control cube- wherever it is- is useless. Lock this up. I want it secure and guarded. No energy sources, and definitely no biotics, are to be allowed anywhere near it. I'm going to speak to our new prisoner myself. I want to know how a goddamn quarian merc gets her hands on the most cataclysmic weapon ever constructed."


	9. Chapter 9

A/N- Hope everyone is having a wonderful holidays, and a very happy New Year!

* * *

Unlike some older asari, Melara never thought it strange or disconcerting to see a quarian out of an environmental suit. Thanks to their alliance with the geth, who had implemented measures to strengthen their immune systems, quarians had not been required to wear environmental suits even off world since Melara was about five years old. She had vague memories of seeing her Aunt Tali in one when she'd come to visit once, but that was all. Pictures and old vids of quarians during the time of the War and previous were what Melara found strange. Their suits were beautiful but to her, they looked like walking prisons.

The quarians had spent the time during the war not only rebuilding their people, but reaffirming their place in the galactic community. Now no longer confined to suits, ships, or even Rannoch, they had settled colonies all over Citadel space and even wide areas of the Traverse. Most didn't even use the archaic practice of including in their name their ship or colony of origin any more, and while a great number of them still made the best engineers and tech experts in the galaxy, they had long since spread into a variety of other fields. There were even quarian Spectres now.

Her only surprise at seeing Red wasn't in her lack of an environmental suit, but simply at how young and guileless she looked. Her hair was a shade of platinum blond that was nearly white, shaved in a pattern on one side and allowed to grow long otherwise. Stripped of her jump suit she remained in a simple skin suit, the black lines of pigment over her tan skin mingling with bold tribal tattoos along the back of her hands and wrists, and part of her neck. She was sitting on the bench in her brig cell as if she were on a transport taking a sight-seeing tour, completely unconcerned. When she saw Shepard, she smiled a bit.

"I was wondering if I'd get to meet you face to face," she said as Melara stopped at the barrier.

"I need to know where you got that artifact you were trying to sell Moore."

"No doubt. Mel- can I call you Mel, or is that too informal? I'm never sure of the rules of social graces. Mel, you see, I'm in a bit of a bind. As you'll no doubt discover soon I've got no outstanding warrants and technically didn't really do anything wrong. You see, I'm not a criminal, I just do occasional business with them. I find- _legitimately_, mind, _legally_- rare artifacts and trinkets and I sell them to those most interested. So, here's my dilemma. You're going to deliver me to C-Sec where I'll sit cooling my heels for a while until I'm charged with abetting that ass Moore because I had knowledge of his slaves but did not turn him in. I _might_ get assault. At most, I'm looking at a mandatory slap on the wrist sentence of about six months, at which point I'll be free to go and start work again. If I tell you where I got my artifact, well…you're going to go all official Spectre-ish and toddle your ship to that location and everything is going to be confiscated. And that's _really_ bad for my business. I need to make a living and eat just like everyone else. You see my conundrum?"

Melara lifted a brow, arms folded. "I see. You actually have no idea what that artifact is, do you?"

Red shrugged. "It's an old relic. It'd make a pretty belt, but it's rather useless for all that. Moore wanted it and offered a rather sizable sum for it. I expect its antiquity and uniqueness will pique the interests of other collectors of rare items but beyond that-"

"So I thought," Melara replied. "So let me tell you how this is _really_ going to go, Red- may I call you Red? You see, you're facing charges a bit more stiff than mere abetting and possibly assault. For one thing, we've talked to the salarians we retrieved from Moore's ship. That assault you're talking about? The salarian whose fingers you bent is from one of the wealthiest and most prestigious families not only on Sur'Kesh, but in the _galaxy_. His name is Mott Solus- recognize it? Yes, the same family as _Mordin_ Solus, the war hero who gave his life to free the krogan from the genophage. That makes it a _little_ more complicated than simple assault- his family is going to be howling for your head, and the Council is very likely to grant it to them in the form of…oh, about fifteen more years in a hard labor high security penal colony."

Red had gone still, looking at Mel. "Oh, my. Well then. Oopsie on my part."

"'Oopsie' indeed, but that's not even the worst of it. That artifact you tried to sell? It's inactive, but it's one of the rarest and most deadly weapons of mass destruction this galaxy has ever seen. When the Council finds out you had it, _and_ tried to sell it to a known criminal, they're going to get you for weapons' trafficking, illegal possession of advanced technology in violation of the Galactic Equal Advancement treaty, illegal possession of a weapon of mass destruction, terrorism- oh, and high treason. Most of those individual charges alone would bring a life sentence at hard labor in that high security penal colony I mentioned- the last one will get you executed."

"Then the situation is a bit stickier than I thought."

"Precisely. So let's make it a bit less sticky, shall we? You tell me where you got that artifact- give me the exact circumstances and direct me to the exact coordinates- and I use my pull with the Council to get at least four of those charges dropped. I don't think you honestly knew what you had, or intended to sell something so dangerous to a bastard like Moore. You'll still be facing about fifteen years at hard labor, but you can look forward to getting out at some point, and better yet, keeping your head. It's your choice."

Red pursed her lips, one bare foot tapping on the floor momentarily in an anxious, thoughtful twitch. Then, she hopped up to her feet. "I'll tell you what," she said. "You let me think on that very _very_ carefully for a little while, hmm? I like to be thorough and consider all angles, especially when it comes to my head staying on or parting ways with my shoulders. I will give everything you said the full weight of my attention and consideration, and get _right back_ to you with my answer."

Melara dropped her arms, straightening. Her expression was fixed but her displeasure shone in her eyes. "You do that. We'll be at the Citadel soon and you'll be leaving this cell for a high security one at C-Sec. You have until I come and see you again there to give me your answer. Consider very carefully, Red."

"I will. I will indeed. Most carefully, I assure you."

She watched the asari Spectre turn and walk away. The moment Melara was out of sight, Red sank down into a sit on the floor of her cell, covering her face. "Keelah. _Keelah_. Ifil'ako bosh'tet! What have you gotten yourself into now?"

* * *

Just as the _Normandy_ fell out of ultra-light speed at Pluto, Melara's omni-tool lit up. Surprised to see it was a message from her sister, she quickly accessed it. It was short and simple and infuriatingly undetailed, sent not only to her but her mother and niece as well.

_I am safe, but cannot discuss details now. I am not at Oasis, please do not go there searching for me. I will contact you all within the next few hours. Please forgive me. Irie._

If nothing else, it actually increased Melara's concern for her sister's welfare, rather than alleviating it. If Irie was not at Oasis, where was she? Why had she missed their anniversary call, and why had she not answered her omni-tool in days? While Irie was more than capable of taking care of herself, Melara strongly disliked the entire feel of this. Something huge had to be going on for Irie to be acting in this manner.

_I cannot be concerned with it right now_, she thought as she switched it off again. _I have two high-value prisoners to deliver, a report to give, and a case to plea that has literally millions of lives depending on it._

She would just have to trust that Irie would keep her promise and call in a few hours, put Mel's mind to rest. For now, it was out of her hands. Even were she free to go looking, she had no idea where her sister was or what the situation might be- looking for her might actually make things worse.

_Goddess, keep her safe._

Almost the moment the _Normandy_ had clamped in to her private berth the activity quickly refocused her on duty. The salarian victims were offloaded first, delivered into the hands of medics and a few representatives of not only their families but the salarian government as a whole. They would be treated and debriefed, and given whatever physical or psychological help they would need to get their lives back on track.

Once the salarians were dealt with, Vina and the security team retrieved both Moore and Red, escorting them in Melara's wake as she left the ship. A rather sizable compliment of armed C-Sec officers were waiting to take custody.

"It would be best to keep them in separate areas," she told the commanding officer as his men took custody of them. "She's not too pleased with Moore right now. You give her half a chance you'll probably have a dead slaver on your hands rather than a prisoner for trial."

"Not that I'd shed too many tears over that," the officer said dryly, then nodded. "Will do."

"I have to go and see the Council. I'll be back down later to talk with her some more. She has information that I need."

"We can set up an interrogation room if you'd like," he said. "The Council should be waiting for you. Your sister is probably already there."

That halted her, and she blinked at him in surprise. "My sister? Irie is here?"

"Yeah, thought you knew. She contacted us before she docked in a tiny merchant ship two slips over, about twenty minutes ago. Requested a couple of my boys escort her and her pilot directly to the Chambers. Seemed in an awful hurry."

"I see. Thank you, Lieutenant."

As C-Sec took the prisoners away, Vina dismissed the security team and headed over to her captain. Melara glanced at her. "Come with me to the Council. We have a lot to report…and to _learn_, it would seem."

* * *

The two headed directly for the Council tower, saying little on the way. Despite her rigidity and her near constant military professionalism, Vina was one of Melara's dearest and most trusted friends. When the asari had finally accepted the title of Spectre, her then current Alliance rank of Captain had been frozen, and while she had been free before to hand-pick her own crew she had been limited to a pool of Alliance soldiers. The title of Spectre brought with it the additional freedom of choosing even those _outside_ of the Alliance- and much like her father, she chose her crew based on their incredible skill and talent, ignoring species or the occasionally unfortunate past history.

Vina was one of these. When Mel had first met her, she was a merc captain in the Blood Suns, a hybrid gang formed when a number of Blue Suns and Blood Pack had decided to splinter into their own group. Vina's past was colored with a number of dark and unfortunate deeds, and she had her own fair share of blood on her hands. It was a fact that the turian had worked hard to get past, and it still- Melara knew- tormented her.

When they'd met, Melara had been intent on killing her. The Blood Suns had fouled up a major drug shipment and when the Spectre descended on them, several had taken civilian hostages- including young children. By the time Melara had arrived, Vina had killed two of her own men and was threatening the others at gunpoint, ordering them to release the children. One of the mothers, carrying an infant, managed to break away from a wounded merc and he'd shot at her- hitting Vina in the process as she stepped between his bullet and the fleeing woman.

Melara's team took care of the rest in short time, and none of the hostages were injured. She'd ordered Vina, badly wounded and dying, to be taken to the _Normandy_ infirmary. The turian had survived, and after she'd recovered, left. Two years passed, the Spectre and the former merc keeping in contact. Vina became one of Melara's underground informants, before the turian realized she could no longer live the kind of life she had been. She wanted the chance to actually do some good in the galaxy, and make up for some of the damage her young and stupid self had caused. Melara welcomed the opportunity to give her that chance, and for the last four years Vina had been an exemplary first officer. Melara would and did trust her with her life, and Vina knew she owed Mel a debt she could never hope to repay. Vina's loyalty to the Spectre was unbreakable.

They reached the Council tower, the guard immediately clearing them and unlocking the elevator. Up in the common area, they had to pass through another set of guards who cleared them quickly. The one in charge opened the anteroom door with his palm print and nodded.

"They're in full session and waiting for you, ma'am. I'm sorry, but your XO will have to remain here. The Council has declared this meeting highly confidential, and only you are cleared to enter."

Mel frowned, then nodded at Vina, her disquiet only growing. The Council knew that she trusted her XO implicitly and Vina had never before been excluded from even the most sensitive meetings and assignments they'd given to the Spectre.

Vina made no protest, only nodded in return and stepped back to wait as Melara stepped into the anteroom, the door sliding shut and sealing behind her. A scan cleared her of any bugs or listening devices and automatically powered off her omni-tool. It could be repowered inside, but at least five Councilors had to give the command through their consoles. It was part of the security measures Liara had put into place to make sure the Chambers were inaccessible by the Broker or any other hostile intelligence.

Stepping through the final anteroom door into the meeting Chamber itself, Melara had a passing thought of how her father might have felt seeing the new Council for the first time after the War had ended. Instead of only three members representing the elite species of the galaxy, the Council now numbered twelve, one representative of each space-faring and civilized species that so desired it granted a chair and a voice in their governing. Of all of them, only the batarians and the vorcha did not have a seat-the former because they had declined any interest in it, the latter because they had no mind or want for politics, possessing no real organization or structure among their widely scattered people.

The Councilors sat (or stood, in the case of the elcor and hanar) around a giant horse-shoe table, a console display inset before each. As they stepped in, the Head Councilor- an asari matron named Karina V'Dess- was speaking to Irie, who stood in the center of the horseshoe with an unfamiliar human man.

"-if what you say is accurate, Dr. T'Soni- and we have no reason to doubt you- this is cause for great alarm. I- good. Captain, please step forward. We have been waiting for your arrival. Your sister has come to us with deeply troubling news. Doctor, we will activate your omni-tool so that you are able to present your evidence. Please repeat what you have told us for your sister's benefit."

"Of course," Irie said. She barely glanced at Melara as her younger sibling stopped at her side, and Mel didn't miss the way her normally cool and incredibly collected sister was trembling. As several of the Councilors filed through their displays to authorize and power Irie's omni-tool, she began to speak, describing quickly her project and the way the megascope worked, and what she had hoped to accomplish with it.

"Then we had our first successful test run, and were able to view the Andromeda galaxy with only a minor red shift differential…thank you."

The latter was said as her omni-tool suddenly powered. Immediately she lifted it and accessed it, projecting a holographic display of their recordings from the test. The Andromeda galaxy appeared hovering just over her head. "This was the first image we were able to capture. I asked my team if we could move into a closer magnification, and we retrieved this."

The next image showed the galaxy even brighter and closer and sharper than before. Every set of eyes in the room was fixed upon it. Melara's narrowed a little. "What are those?"

"That was precisely my question," Irie said in a hushed voice. "I also noticed the scattering of specks ranked evenly over the image, and asked if we could magnify close enough to see one in detail. We succeeded but due to the power drain on our systems, we were only able to get a single image spanning a split second of time. _This_ image."

The picture shifted once again. This time, everyone in the room gasped, even those who knew what was coming.

Melara felt her blood turn to ice and took a step backward unconsciously, staring at the holographic image of the reaper for what felt like an eternity before a heavy shock seemed to strike her in the chest. It took a moment for her to realize that strike was her own heartbeat.

The initial moment of shocked silence was quickly replaced by a wellspring of voices as everyone seemed to speak all at once, expressing their horror and disbelief and shouting questions until one voice could not be separated from the others. Melara, Irie, and the strange man at Irie's side were the only ones that stayed silent.

Several times, V'Dess tried to gain order. Finally she touched her console, a loud squeal slicing through the noise. As the others looked at her, startled, she said, "I understand the alarm that this news brings, but we must have order. Irie, who else knows of this discovery?"

"My team on Oasis. They are fully vetted and I trust them to keep quiet about this news, at least for a very long while. I took great pains to make sure this information did not leak into the greater galaxy-that is why I came in person rather than transmit this over potentially compromised signals. They and those present here in this room are the only ones who know."

"Captain Pradesh, you understand we will have to make sure you are vetted and not a security risk. This information is far too sensitive, and if it leaked there could be a massive, galaxy-wide panic."

"I understand and am aware, Madame Councilor," replied the strange human man.

"Good. What else do we know, Irie?"

"I left my team with orders to follow up as I was en route here. I kept my omni-tool powered off in transit to prevent hacking, but my assistant had orders to send me a simple confirmation of those tests. One moment."

She filed through her tool, internally wincing at the number of messages from her family trying to find out where she was and if she was all right. Finally, she found the single message left by King, not two hours before. It was only three words.

_Yes. No motion._

"I have it," she said, looking up at the gathering politicians. "I asked her to scan Andromeda again and verify whether or not those Reapers were in motion. I also asked her to check the other galaxies in our local cluster. She has just confirmed. The Reapers are present around each galaxy in our cluster, and the ones at Andromeda appear to be dormant- there is no discernible movement or activity that she can detect."

"That, at least, is something of a relief-" V'Dess said, then caught sight of the look on Melara's face. "Captain?"

"Irie, can you bring up the other image again? The one showing the Reapers around Andromeda from a distance?" Melara asked, ignoring the Councilor.

Irie did so, and the galaxy once more appeared. The Reapers were just visible if indiscernible, nothing more than a collection of odd black specks. Melara turned her head a bit, then the other way, narrowing her eyes.

"Captain? You see something we do not?" V'Dess asked.

"During the War, it was learned that the Reapers lay dormant in dark space until they activate and begin their Cycle. Once that Cycle is done, they return to dark space and dormancy until the next civilizations rise," she said thoughtfully.

"Yes, that is correct."

"All right. But this pattern here-" She waved a hand over the image, indicating the slumbering Reaper specks. "This doesn't look like waiting or regrouping, and it doesn't seem a sound strategy for dormancy."

"King verifies they are dormant," Irie said, and Melara nodded.

"Yes, I know, and I think they are, but Reapers are _vulnerable_ when they are dormant. They run on very minimal power during the hibernation stage of their Cycle. When they're out they have little to nothing in the way of shields, weapons systems, or flight controls. They require an external signal to reactivate. Here, that was Sovereign's job. A single Reaper that stays behind, stays _awake_, monitors the situation in the galaxy, and sends that signal to activate its brethren when the time comes. Also, what we know of their invasion tactics…they should be clustered together, a huge armada, closely associated, in a small region of dark space just outside the galaxy. When they initially invade, they invade as a group- all coming in at once, together. They hit hard and in huge numbers before they start spreading out to isolate systems. This formation here, they're already all spread out, regimented- and from what I can tell, equidistant but vast light years apart from each other. At their FTL capabilities it would take them hundreds of years, if not thousands, to spread out like that and then cluster in again in order to invade together at a single entry point."

"The Ferbian Signatures…" the quarian Councilor said, rubbing his chin nervously . V'Dess looked at him.

"Laykin?"

He folded his hands to keep them from fiddling. "Dr. T'Soni and any other astrophysicist would have heard of them. About sixty years after the war, Dr. Keblo Ferbia detected odd energy signatures out in dark space with new, highly sensitive equipment. These signatures are almost identical to those given off by our individual relays, only weaker. The underlying radiation signatures do not match the known radiation patterns of eezo. Most claim these are merely natural phenomenon, but others have theorized they represent another relay system out in dark space, one that doesn't run on dark energy cores but another power source about half as strong."

"How many of these signatures have been found?"

He shrugged. "I'd have to check, but I believe at least six or seven. They are very widely dispersed and their weak signal strength seems to fluctuate on occasion- I don't know if they've discovered yet why. If they _are_ some kind of relay system, it is smaller and more rudimentary than our own. Attempts have even been made to try to connect to that theoretical external network from our internal one with no success."

"If those relays are real and scattered at specific points, then theoretically it would only take each quadrant or section of Reapers about two years to reach their nearest relay," Irie said. "That is more in keeping with what we experienced here. That external network- if it exists- forms a way for the Reapers to cluster relatively quickly to a master relay, which has the only bridge connection to the Citadel."

"Which we know must be activated by the Keepers, and thereafter responds only to specific Reaper signals for back and forth travel- signals we have been unable to emulate thus far," Melara said.

"Yes, "the volus delegate said. "When your father blocked their entry at the Citadel, the clustered Reapers simply proceeded en masse to the edge of the galaxy nearest to their master external relay; the Bahak system. It took them time to traverse the dark space between the external relay and batarian space. If this hypothetical external relay system connected at any other point than the Citadel to the internal, they would simply have poured through at any other relay and would have had no need for the Citadel to begin with."

"But why create that kind of system?" The drell asked, confused. "An external relay system to allow the Reapers to move easily around dark space when necessary, but one that only joins to the internal system at a _single_ location, forcing them to swarm through one point rather than hitting every relay in the galaxy at once?"

"It is anyone's guess," Irie said. "The Reapers may have just taken advantage of a system that was already in place at their initial arrival. It could be that it was built the way it was specifically to prevent the civilizations of the galaxy from accidentally accessing the external system from this side-"

Melara's spoke up suddenly , interrupting her. "That's _it_, Irie. That's just what I was thinking. Taking these positions while dormant-this isn't in keeping with their siege behavior, nor is it efficient for merely waiting for their next activation signal. They're forming a very widely dispersed but remarkably evenly spaced strategic web around Andromeda. Irie, the last image again please?"

As Irie pulled up the image of the full-scale reaper, Melara snapped her fingers. "Yes, you see? Look. Here, along its edge. That faint distortion. That's a connective energy field, extended and shared between the Reaper ships and no doubt powered by ambient radiation so as not to drain their eezo cores."

She broke her eyes away from the image and looked at the Head Councilor.

"If I saw foot troops or any of our fleets taking up this kind of position around a given target or location, generating a connective energy field between them, I would know exactly what they were doing, and it wouldn't be 'strategically waiting to invade.'"

"What would it be, Captain?

"It would be a _quarantine_."


	10. Chapter 10

"Quarantine?" V'Dess said, and even speaking softly her voice carried to the others. "Are you sure?"

"I'd need a lot more information to be sure, Councilor, but that is what it appears to be to me."

"But why a quarantine? How does that make sense?" The human Councilor asked. Irie looked thoughtful.

"Theoretically, it could just be a means of protection for them while they are dormant. Any ship that leaves the galaxy for dark space would pass through their net, and the disruption in signal would awaken them and their security systems," she said.

"Or perhaps they don't want us leaving our galaxy for some reason," Melara said. "Could that be the reason they perpetrate the Cycle? They're trying to prune civilizations before they reach the technological advancement to leave their home galaxies?"

"For what reason? To what end?" V'Dess asked.

"This is all speculation and may not even be correct," Irie said. "We need to run more tests. Knowing the Reapers around Andromeda are not in motion is a relief- they are not heading here to renew an invasion. I will continue to work on the megascope, verify that this energy web around Andromeda is there and try and determine its scope. I can also see if it exists among the Reapers around the other local galaxies. It could be it is something that is exclusive to Andromeda, and did not even come into play here. Andromeda may be the Reapers' home galaxy, and they have created the web there in order to defend it against possible retaliation from _us, _or other civilizations. Or it could be Andromeda alone contains a threat they want to prevent from spreading throughout the rest of the universe, and the Milky Way Cycles had nothing to do with a quarantine. We simply need more data."

"In the thread of 'preventing us from leaving our galaxy,' the turian said thoughtfully. "Could the technology you created for the megascope actually lead to that end?"

"Theoretically yes. Folding space has many potential applications, including to allow travel to distant parts of the universe instantly. However, just to open a Fold less than the size of the tip of my finger for the megascope- one that is aimed where we wish it to be aimed and not into a random part of space and time- requires a level of power that is astronomical. At our current level of technology, I would hazard a guess that we are at least six centuries away from creating a Fold big enough to pass a ship through, and possibly seven or eight centuries to have that ship go to a solid target we designate, rather than a random point in space and time in a potential unending multiverse of dimensions."

"Then it is possible the Reapers have a way of detecting these 'folds' you're opening for your scope, true? They may be alerted and return to the Milky Way to halt us from utilizing that tech to leave the galaxy," he said thoughtfully. "That is, IF they are truly forming a quarantine and IF it is for the purpose of preventing our departure."

"Again, there is not enough data to tell," Irie replied, frustrated. "If what you suppose is correct, the Reapers themselves operate on an FTL threshold similar to our own. It would also take them millions of years to reach us from the closest galaxy, even were they to leave immediately."

"Unless those particular Reapers have technology that Harbinger and his like did _not_ have. Or unless those 'Ferbian Signals' truly do represent an extragalactic relay network that may potentially allow them to cross that distance fairly quickly."

V'Dess shook her head. "We can guess and speculate for weeks and never know for certain. We must deal with the concrete facts we have in hand. The only way afforded to us to track those Reapers and gain the information we need is Irie's megascope and folding space technology. As our only option, we must utilize it despite these theoretical risks. Irie, you will be fully funded in your research by this Council. Right now your sole task at Oasis will be to gather all the information you can about the Reapers surrounding our local galaxies. Will you be able to verify if their presence extends beyond the local cluster?"

"Not without four times as much power. The further that is looked, the more power is needed to maintain the Fold and its focus. I am sorry to say our view at the moment is limited to our local area."

"Work on extending that as you are able. Melara, we also ask that you focus your energies to this problem as well. Cross this galaxy if you have to, provide anything your sister needs and follow up on any information you can, no matter how slight. I do not pretend we can keep this information secret from the greater galaxy forever, but we need to do so as long as we can. Hopefully when it becomes public we will have some more solid answers for our people. Melara, you are authorized to reveal this information to your crew and as-needed personnel but no one else. Irie, the same extends to you and your research team. Captain Pradesh, you will be vetted and under the same sanctions. If you are cleared, this Council will pay your wages for an indefinite period. You will be officially tied to the Oasis research base, running supplies and needed items solely for them, am I understood."

"Yes, ma'am. And…if I am not cleared?"

"I think the answer to that is fairly self-evident, Captain."

"Uh, yes. Indeed. Well then. Agreed."

"Captain, Doctor, we will require weekly reports from both of you on what you have found and the status of the situation. That said, for now this section of our meeting is concluded. Captain Shepard, I would like to address your two prisoners."

Irie stepped back a little as her sister described what had happened with Moore and his vessel, and Red's involvement in events. Preoccupied with her own thoughts, she didn't tune her focus back in fully until she heard her sister mention the Cinch.

"I have the artifact she was attempting to sell to Moore under guard. It is inactive and has no control cube, but there is no doubt as to the nature of this item- it is a Cinch."

"A Cinch? The same device your father detonated in the Anadius system?"

"Yes. I questioned her as to where she obtained it. She is hesitant to tell me, but given the weight of what she may be facing legally I believe with a little encouragement she will be cooperative. I do not believe she truly knew what she had, nor that she intended to sell such a dangerous weapon to someone like Moore."

"Could it be the second Cinch mentioned in your father's logs? The one in the possession of the asari named Eír?"

"I highly doubt it. I believe that Cinch was destroyed on Aratoht. There is no reason to believe she was in possession of it when she departed that world for a short trip to Tuchanka, and even if she was, Eír is fully aware of the Cinch's capabilities and can remain expertly hidden when she desires. Given her skills alone, I greatly doubt this quarian merc was able to take it away from her. Should she have miraculously succeeded, Eír would now be hunting her to retrieve it again with ferocity. She never would have made it to that rendezvous with Moore. "

"So this shows there are more of these devices besides the two we are aware of. That is deeply troubling."

"And all the more reason we need to find out where she got it. I don't want these things floating around the galaxy uncontrolled any more than you do- or any _other_ technology that might be on par with the Cinch devices."

"Get her cooperation and find the source. Find it even if you cannot get her cooperation. We will agree to any lifting of charges you feel reasonable as a bargaining chip toward that end. The charges of assault against the Solus family will have to stand- that is out of even our hands, but the rest-"

"I will let her know. Finally, Councilors, as to the rakir…"

"We have Matron Neska's full reports and repeated pleas. You are confident we can seal a treaty with the rakir's leader?"

"The Ubuuta is fiercely devoted to her aunt. Her aunt is conscious and recovering, and knows that we are not her enemy. With her testimony I believe we can secure a treaty with little fuss. I know how potentially damaging it is to uplift a species before their time, even a dying one. It has impacts not only in the greater galactic community, but alters the course of their species forever. However in light of their Affliction, and the evidence that Moore and his slaver ring have taken numerous rakir off their home world for the slave trade, I think the only moral path is quite clear. If the rakir are not uplifted they will die, save a small handful in slavery that we have not yet recovered. No species deserves to exist solely as slaves. If we are to preserve any of their culture, we must uplift them."

"Submit your full report. We will review everything regarding the rakir that has been presented, both by you and Matron Neska. We will weigh all our options very carefully, Captain Shepard, I assure you. No one here wants an entire species obliterated, but we must consider all ends. I will submit our final judgment to Matron Neska within the next two solar days."

It was not a solid answer, and not what Melara had hoped, but it would have to do. They'd laid all their cards on the table. If the Council came back with a no, she knew that Neska would still continue to fight and petition until the last of the rakir was gone forever.

So, for that matter, would Melara.

"I understand, Madame Councilor. Thank you."

"You are dismissed. Dr. T'Soni, you as well are dismissed. Captain Pradesh, you will remain. A C-Sec officer will arrive shortly to escort you to be interviewed for our vetting process."

"I understand, ma'am. Thank you."

Irie turned to Gerty, lightly taking his arm. "You will be all right. I have no doubt you will clear the process."

He gave a nervous smile. "If I don't, well…my ship is yours. She's not much but she's…well, not much."

"She is a good little ship, but it does not matter. I will see you soon."

As she and Melara left the Chambers, she didn't miss the way her sister looked at her, her eyes then going to the human man for a moment before turning away. Mel didn't speak until they got outside, Vina rising from a bench and heading to meet them.

"Well, at least now I know why you didn't make the call, and didn't answer my pings," she said, looking at her older sister. Irie looked miserable.

"I am so sorry, Melara. I did not mean to forget, and I-"

"Hey, it's fine. I get it. What I just learned in there…well, you've got one hell of a good excuse, anyway."

"Is Mama terribly angry?"

"Of course she's not angry, she's just worried…and she'll understand too. She's got higher security clearance with the Council than even _I_ do- we can tell her what's going on. She may even be able to help ferret out some information."

"Are you going back to Nakira?"

Melara nodded. "Going to go talk to our quarian merc first. If she can give me the details of how she found that damned Cinch I'm going to follow up on that immediately. If not, it's back to Nakira. Dae and your daughter are both still there and at the very least I need to pick them up. You want a ride?"

"Gerty will take me back to Oasis," Irie said matter-of-factly. "But thank you for the offer."

"Oh he will? You that sure he'll clear vetting?"

"Yes, I am sure. He is a good man-…what? Why are you looking at me like that?"

"No reason," Melara said with a smirk, then waved her hand. "I'm sure he is. Listen, stay in touch. We're going to have to coordinate our efforts to get to the bottom of this thing. One step at a time, ok?"

"I will. Vina, it is good to see you again."

"And you, Doctor," Vina replied with a nod. Irie noticed the turian didn't bother asking Melara what had gone on in Chambers. If she was allowed to know she had no doubt Melara would tell her, and if she was not, all the asking in the world would not reveal it.

"Wipe your omni-tool then use the Council's secure frequency to call Mama, talk to her. Let her know you're ok," Melara said. "I need to get down to C-Sec and talk to that quarian merc. I will see you again soon, Irie. Take care of yourself."

"I will," Irie replied, reaching out and hugging her younger sister tightly. "You too, sweetheart. Stay safe."

* * *

Red was pacing the small, high-security cell she'd been placed in at C-Sec headquarters when the asari came in. She did not hear her enter-either because of the softness of the asari's approach or because of her own distraction. One moment, she was not there, and then there she was, startling the quarian completely.

She eyed the silent newcomer a moment, then shook her head. "You're not C-Sec, and you're not dressed like one of Shepard's crew."

"Because I am neither," the asari replied. "My name is Athena. I am…a collector of information."

"Is that so?"

"That is so. I am also the reason you are in this cell and not rolling in credits aboard your own ship right this very moment."

Red narrowed her eyes. "You're the one that tipped the _Normandy_ off on where to find Moore."

"I am."

"Then you're the reason that my crew is dead, my ship is crushed, and I'm facing possible execution!"

"On the contrary, Thiredra'Gerrel, I am here to save your life, _and_ your freedom."

"Do _not_ call me that!" Red said furiously. "And what the fuck are you talking about?"

"I have been monitoring your activity for some time now. When I learned you had the Cinch device and were planning to sell it to Moore, I notified the _Normandy_. I knew Melara would interfere, and I knew she would see you put into a cell instead of shot. Of course, that bastard Moore needed to be brought down as well, but that was just a pleasurable bonus to what I really needed. You."

"Honey, you're cute and all, but you're going to have to come up with something better than that."

"I need you to work with me. I want you to show me where you got the Cinch, and I need your particular knack at finding such rare and high tech artifacts."

"You could have just come and asked me. You didn't need to arrange for me to be arrested."

"No, but this way I have a bit more of a bargaining chip, do I not?"

"Let me guess…you're going to try and get my sentence reduced in exchange for my cooperation. Yeah, Shepard's already doing that. Tell me why I should help you and not her."

"She is trying to get your sentence reduced. I am going to walk you out of here right now, clean record, no prison time whatsoever."

"How are you going to do that?"

"The same way I walked in here. I altered records to provide me clearance. I can alter records to clear you right out of that cell and onto my ship. Not only that, but if you help me, I will give you quadruple what Moore was willing to pay you for that Cinch."

Red's brows knit, her eyes narrowing warily. "No, there's something else going on. You're not really interested in high tech items or rare artifacts or money. You've got another reason you are doing this. What?"

"I will tell you that on my ship, in space, off this station- and only if you agree to help me. I can find out this information on my own Red. I can track everywhere you've ever gone and every word you've ever spoken if I need to. However, it will take a lot of time to do that. I'd rather you just help me. It's a win-win for both of us."

"Killing my crew was a 'win' for me, was it?"

"It was a sad result and was not intended. That lies solely on Moore's shoulders, and he will get his comeuppance for it. When you hear my full story, however, I think even you agree their deaths were a small sacrifice in light of the situation."

She stepped closer to the barrier and fixed Red's eyes with her own. "Melara is going to be finished with her Council meeting soon, and then she will be here trying to press you to cooperate and tell her where you got that Cinch. If you agree, you will still face fifteen years hard labor. You will still be in that cell. You agree to help me right here, and right now, and you will be free of that cell and walking off this station a rich woman in just a few minutes. I do promise you this, however- if I leave here alone, you will never see me again, and this offer will never again be extended. It is your decision."

Red pursed her lips, thinking, brows knit tight a moment, before she nodded. "Fine. You give me just one more thing and I'll help you with whatever it is you need to be done."

"What is that?" Athena asked.

"You let me kill Moore for what he did to my men and my ship. Right here, and right now."

Athena's eyes studied her a moment, unreadable, before she smiled ever so slightly. Lifting her omni-tool, she activated it, then touched a command. The cell barrier switched off. Reaching into the small of her back, she drew out a pistol, then handed it to the wary quarian.

"Deal."


	11. Chapter 11

A/N: Happy New Year to everyone!

* * *

"What do you mean, she just walked out of here?"

Melara stood staring intently at the confused C-Sec commander as he filed through his records. Vina stood at her side, casually glancing around the entrance to the holding block, one hand resting as usual on her pistol at her hip.

"Just that, ma'am," he said. "Escort came in with Spectre clearance and Council orders. Took the prisoner out of here not twenty minutes ago."

"Who was the Spectre?"

She could hardly believe any of the other Spectres would remove her prisoner without talking to her first, and there was no reason she could see as to why anyone on the Council would order the merc moved. They'd just been discussing her less than fifteen minutes ago.

He filed through his console, then activated a display of credentials. "Noriya L'Leyne-"

"L'Leyne has been dead for six months," Melara said tersely. She nodded at Vina, who drew her weapon and headed down the cell block, peering in to units. "Pull up surveillance."

Looking pale, he did so. "I don't understand. We double checked everything. I even have a signed order from V'Dess. It was all kosher-"

He played back the 2D surveillance records. Very clearly, an asari appeared and checked in at the desk, then went down the block. She returned a few minutes later with Red en tow, checked out, then departed the office.

Melara's eyes narrowed as she instantly recognized the asari. "That is _not_ a Spectre."

Stepping in and accessing his console herself, she pulled up the surveillance on Red's cell. As she watched Athena appear and start talking to the merc, she activated her omni-tool, pinging V'Dess. The Head Councilor answered almost immediately.

"_Yes, Melara?"_

"I'm betting you didn't actually authorize a dead Council Spectre to remove Thiredra'Gerrel from C-Sec holding."

"_What? No, of course not! What has happened?"_

"Athena apparently has access to Spectre Services and C-Sec's records databases. She falsified her credentials, strolled right on in and removed Red from holding. I'm showing a very valid looking authorization signed by you ordering the move."

"_We will immediately look into the weak spots in both databases-why would she take Red? Do you know where they may be heading?"_

"No idea, but given she's the one that tipped me off to Moore's location, I'm betting she knew Red would be there and this entire thing was a set-up just to get this to happen. She left at most about twenty five minutes ago. I'm in the C-Sec computer, and I'm putting in an order to lock-down the docking ring. If they haven't gotten onto a ship yet they won't be able to leave the station."

"_I will authorize that order immediately-"_

"Captain," Vina reappeared, her face grim. "Moore is dead."

"What?"

"His cell is powered on, but he is dead. Shot right in the face."

"That's- that's not possible. We have sensors that monitor any kind of weapons discharge, not to mention the vitals of each prisoner. The moment any gun went off or his heart stopped alarms should have been ringing all over the place," the harried officer said.

Melara pulled up the cell surveillance for Moore. "The equipment is still registering his vitals. They're showing a heartbeat. You're sure he's dead, Vina?"

"Half his head is gone. I'm positive."

Mel zoomed in on Moore' s body. Even on vid, it was obvious the man could not possibly be alive. Rewinding the footage, she watched as Athena let Red into the cell with a gun. Moore stood abruptly from where he was sitting and opened his mouth, but before he could let out a sound, the merc coolly shot him in the face, then stepped out again. The barrier was reactivated.

"She dropped that barrier at will, _and_ reactivated it without sending notification to this station," she said. "That gun was a modified Reeger 19. The sound it makes can easily be mistaken for a sharp, dry cough."

Stepping around the console she walked toward the door, Vina immediately turning to follow as she called back to the officer. "Contact your superior. I want every C-Sec officer going through surveillance for the dock and every corridor between it and here. See where they went and if you can pinpoint which ship they may have gotten on!"

She switched her omni-tool to the _Normandy_. "Joker, I want you to power up engines. You may get a ship name in a few moments, if you do- do not wait for me. I want you to undock and pursue that ship if possible."

_{Understood. Cross-checking and starting engines now.}_

"You think she wanted Red in order to get that Cinch?" Vina asked as the two ran toward the docks.

"I'm betting she didn't necessarily want the Cinch itself, but rather to find out where she got it," Melara replied furiously. "She tipped us off knowing we'd likely pick Red up right along with Moore, bung her in a cell, and provide her with the exact leverage she needed to insure the quarian's cooperation. Every time I think that asari could not get any more manipulative and scheming-"

_{Captain, this is Captain Marley with C-Sec. We have retrieved surveillance. The asari and the quarian merc passed into the docking area and boarded a small ship at slip 189-3 in civilian public docking. Flagged '_Hopeful_'. Looks like she unclamped about twenty minutes ago.}_

Twenty minutes was just enough time for a fast little ship to pass Jupiter. In another fifteen, they'd be to the Pluto relay. If they passed through it without their launch coords being tracked and tailed, there would be no way to know to which of the twenty eight systems connected to that relay they went. In several, it would only take half an hour to reach the next relay- far shorter than it would to pinpoint their first jump.

If they hit the Pluto relay without the _Normandy_ directly on their tail, they would be lost. Problem was, even with her superior engines, the _Normandy_ would never reach them in time to track them through the relay.

"Joker, get on the horn to every ship in the solar system, any ship that is close to the Pluto relay. We need someone to capture the coords of a ship, ident flag '_Hopeful_'. We'll be on board in two minutes, and I want to be in space and after them one second later, do you understand?"

They ran through the docking ring then down the airlock ramp. Almost as soon as they had passed into the ship the doors were closing, the vessel unlatching. Melara walked up behind Joker's chair.

"Any luck getting a response?"

"So far, two vessels near Jupiter have answered and are starting toward Pluto to at least try and capture the jump coordinates, but by their top flight speeds and my estimates, they will be exactly 2.3 minutes late."

"No ships closer?"

"None that are responding as yet to my hails."

"Keep trying them."

"Do you think Athena may be blocking transmissions, keeping those ships from our hails?" Vina asked. "She walked a prisoner directly out of C-Sec and allowed the murder of a second one with apparent ease and no technological interference."

"Right now I put nothing past her. Keep trying Joker."

"We will reach our top flight speed in four seconds," he said. "We will arrive at the relay exactly seventeen minutes, nine seconds too late."

Melara's hand gripped the back of his chair so tightly her fingers started to ache. Unconsciously, tiny wisps of biotic energy snaked over her fingers as she fixed her eyes to the view screen and displays.

She already knew what was going to happen. No ship would make it in time to capture the jump coordinates of Athena's vessel. She and Red would disappear into the ether of the galaxy. Using all the resources at Melara's command- her mother, her underground contacts, all her connections- it would still take months if not years to ferret them out again. Athena had the largest information network in the galaxy. She had long since proven that, like her mother, if she did not _wish_ to be found she usually could not be.

Still, Mel was stubborn, a Spectre, and not even remotely ready to give up. They _needed_ to know where Red had gotten that Cinch. Melara didn't particularly care if the quarian was arrested again, but they could not have a possible cache of these kinds of artifacts just laying around for her OR Athena to just pick up.

As Joker verified the ship had vanished through the relay with no capture of its jump coordinates, Melara knew this was not the end of it. One day- and her gut said that day was coming soon- she would be face to face with that abomination of an asari again. Despite her promise to hear Athena out on their next meeting- a promise she would keep, her honor demanded no less- she knew what was going to happen. After Athena had told her whatever it was she wanted to tell her, Melara was going to kill her, or die trying.

No matter what, _one_ of them wasn't walking out of that meeting alive.

* * *

It was almost midnight station time at the research base around Nakira. Sihra, still regaining her strength, had been moved out of the infirmary and into a small set of rooms. Dae had opted to sleep in the infirmary herself, to be closer at hand in case the infant rakir had need of her.

Despite the hour, however, she was not currently asleep but rather on her feet, swaying slightly as she hummed softly to the bundle in her arms. As he regained his strength and even started to grow a little, little Aleu had become fussier about having to sleep on his own. He seemed to like hearing her voice.

This was how Melara came upon them. Pausing in the door of the infirmary, she folded her arms and leaned on the wall for a while, silently watching her bondmate. The tension on her face slowly began to melt away, her dark eyes reflecting the scene with growing affection.

She watched for several minutes before Dae spoke up. "Are you going to stare at us all night or come in?" she asked in a soft singsong. Mel wasn't surprised that her wife had known she was there. Dae was trained as an assassin. Even in safe surroundings, assassins didn't live long if they could be taken unawares.

"Might stare at you all night," Melara replied with gentle amusement. Dae half turned, giving her a wry look, and Mel straightened, heading her way.

"How did things go?" Daenys asked.

"Well…and _badly_. We should have an answer in the morning regarding the rakir's uplifting. The rest…I'll have to tell you tomorrow. I don't even want to think about it right now. How…um…how is he?"

"Sleeping, finally. He likes being held, to hear someone else close. Lily says that's because in the pouch they can still hear their mother's voice, hear her heart beat. He can tell this pouch is artificial."

Melara nodded, then made a rather nervous gesture that made her wife blink a moment. "Can I…um…well, can…you know…?"

Dae couldn't help the grin that appeared on her face, and nodded. Moving gingerly and carefully, she shifted the pouch and the baby rakir within into Melara's arms. The Spectre still held him a bit awkwardly, but she _was_ holding him…and of her own volition.

As Mel looked down at him, Dae felt hope as she saw affection reflected in her wife's eyes. That affection suddenly seemed to collapse into a fearful despair- carefully schooled, but definitely there. Suddenly worried, Dae touched her elbow. "Mel? What is wrong?"

Melara cleared her throat, shaking her head. "Just…a lot has happened. I have a lot to tell you but…not right now. Just…just not right now. In the morning, I promise. After I've slept some. I just…we're not going to be able to be here long. We'll probably have to head out by tomorrow afternoon. Neska should have the Council's answer by then and she and her team are more than qualified to arrange the meeting with Sokka and solidify a treaty if they give their permission."

Dae nodded a little. "Will you be back soon?"

"No, probably not. Not unless we really need to be. We have a lot that needs to be done. I can't say with any certainty when we'll be back here."

Dae's brows wrinkled and she looked at the bundle in Mel's arms. Her wife didn't have to ask to know what she was thinking. She didn't want to leave the baby, but neither could she stay here for weeks or months apart from her wife. Dipping her head a little and meeting Dae's eyes, Melara softly said, "You'll want to ask Neska for a list of any special equipment or sundries we need to get this little guy. If he's going to be away from this infirmary for that long, I want to make sure he's getting all the care he needs. I mean, Lily can help but-"

As she spoke, Dae's eyes changed from forlorn, to confused, to astonished. Flinging her arms around Mel's neck (and supremely careful not to squeeze the slumbering Aleu) she silenced her with a sudden kiss. As it broke, she gasped breathlessly. "You mean it?"

"I mean it, Dae. He deserves whatever good he can get in this galaxy, just like everyone else. And he couldn't ask for any mother to love him more than you."

"Mel! Oh, _thank you!_ Thank you…you hear that, little one? You belong with us now. You have a Tatta and a Tama that will love and take care of you no matter what."

Mel wasn't surprised at her bondmate using the traditional asari words for parents to refer to them, and actually thought it fairly fitting. 'Mommy and Daddy' were a human and turian thing and tended to be gender specific. What she'd called her own father seemed intrinsically tied to Del and would feel wrong to use. To Mel, there would ever only be one Bába.

_So I'm 'Tatta' now. So be it_, she thought, looking from the delighted face of her bondmate down to the little slumbering soul still nestled in her arms. _Just…please, don't let me fuck this up too badly._

* * *

Irie tried not to pace outside of the docking slip where Gerty's tiny merchanter was clamped. Though she had every confidence he'd pass the vetting of the Council there was always a risk he would not. He had proven himself at the very least a compassionate man who tried to do the right thing- she hoped he would not suffer for that because of her, and because he'd had the misfortune of being docked at her station when this had all gone down.

She had already concluded her call with her mother, using the Council's secure communications network and top notch encryption. Liara had of course been very relieved to see her eldest daughter was all right…but very troubled at what little she had heard. Irie didn't reveal the truth about what it was she had found- instead, she told Liara she would be coming to her home to tell her in person. Sam and Liara lived not far from one of the relays they had to use to get back to Oasis anyway- an overnight stop there would not delay them much. Liara had suffered and bled and given far too much of herself in the war against the Reapers- at the very least she deserved to hear this troubling news face to face.

Irie's thoughts kept returning to her research, trying to figure out ways to boost the megascope's capabilities; the first tests she'd need to run the moment she got back; what tests she could have King start _before_ she got back…

"You look so deep in thought I'm not sure even a laser bore could tunnel down to you."

She blinked and turned around. Gerty smiled at her. "You about ready to go?"

"Yes, I..more than ready. I am glad to see you. The Council cleared you with no problem?"

"Well…we had a short but rather intense discussion about some minor past criminal activities of mine- nothing over the top, mind, but nothing I'm proud of either- but yes…we came to an agreement. I have official clearance to participate in this classified matter. So, as I am now your official supplier and chauffer- allow me to escort you back to Oasis so we can get started."

"Yes, but on the way I wish to make an overnight stop. I want to fill my mother in on the situation face to face rather than over a vid or an omni-tool."

He looked stricken. "Your mother?"

"Yes," she said, knitting her brows. "She has full Council clearance and her advice and expertise will be invaluable. It is not much out of our way and should not take long…are you all right?"

"I-I'm fine."

Her brows knit tighter. "If you do not wish to take me I can secure alternate transportation to see her-"

"No, no, it's…it's not that-"

"Then what is it?"

"Your mother…Liara T'Soni-"

Ah. Her face smoothed as she finally understood. "Yes. She is just an asari, Gerty, like any other."

"The things she's seen, and _done_…"

"You will find her quite mortal, I assure you, and quite well-grounded. However, if you find meeting her makes you too nervous, you may remain on ship board while we are there. I would not want to overwhelm you."

"No, I think I can handle it, it's just…I've never met a real life legend face to face before is all. W-well, before you, I mean-"

"I am hardly a legend," Irie smiled.

"We can debate _that_ on the ship," he said, then smiled as he offered his arm. "Doctor, if I may?"

She took his arm politely and allowed him to lead her onto the tiny merchant vessel. In only a few minutes they were leaving the Citadel and heading toward the Pluto relay. A day's flight would see them to her mother's house, a day would be spent there, then another day from there back to Oasis base.

Despite the weight of what was waiting for her once she got back home, she found herself looking forward to spending three days in Gerty's company, and that realization prompted a faint blush and a realization that for the first time since her husband's death, she was actually feeling healed enough to want that happiness back in her life again.


End file.
